This thesis seeks to extend the application of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to temporal graphs, in particular providing new insights for the understanding of covert networks. The analyses undertaken reveal informative features and properties of individuals' affiliations under covertness that also illustrate how both individuals and events influence the network structure. The review of the literature on covert networks provided in the initial two chapters suggests the presence of some ambiguities concerning how authors define structural properties and dynamics of covert networks. Authors sometimes disagree and use their findings to explain opposite views about covert networks. The controversy in the field is used as a starting point in order to justify the methodological application of SNA to understand how individuals involved in criminal and illegal activities interact with each other. I attempt to use a deductive approach, without preconceived notions about covert network characteristics. In particular, I avoid considering covert networks as organisations in themselves or as cohesive groups. I focus on individuals and their linkages constructed from their common participation in illicit events such as secret meetings, bombing attacks and criminal operations. In order to tackle these processes I developed innovative methods for investigating criminals' behaviours over time and their willingness to exchange tacit information. The strategy implies the formulation of a network model in order to represent and incorporate in a graph three types of information: individuals, events, and the temporal dimension of events. The inclusion of the temporal dimension offers the possibility of adopting a more comprehensive theoretical framework for considering individuals and event affiliations. This thesis expands the analysis of bipartite covert networks by adopting several avenues to explore in this perspective. Chapter 3 proposes a different way to represent two-mode networks starting from the use of line-graphs, namely the bi-dynamic line-graph data representation (BDLG), through which it is possible to represent the temporal evolution of individual's trajectories. The following chapter 4 presents some reflections about the idea of cohesion and cohesive subgroups specific to the case of two-mode networks. Based on the affiliation matrices, the analysis of local clustering through bi-cliques offers an attempt to analyse the mechanism of selecting accomplices while taking into account time. Chapter 5 is concerned with the concept of centrality of individuals involved in flows of knowledge exchanges. The theoretical and analytical framework helps in elaborating how individuals share their acquired hands-on experiences with others by attending joint task activities over time. Chapter 6 provides an application of the approaches introduced in the preceding chapters to the specific case of the Noordin Top terrorist network. Here, the knowledge of experience flow centrality measure opens up a new way to quantify the transmission of information and investigate the formation of the criminal capital. Finally, the last Chapter 7 presents some future research extensions by illustrating the versatility of the proposed approaches in order to provide new insights for the understanding of criminals' behaviours.

Individuals engage in competitive and cooperative interactions with conspecifics. Furthermore, within any population of interacting individuals there are typically consistent differences among-individuals in behavioural traits. Understanding the importance of both these types of individual-specific behaviours allows us to understand why populations are structured as they are, why individuals show apparently limited behavioural flexibility, and how these elements link to population-level properties. I used extensive video camera monitoring of a population of wild field crickets (Gryllus campestris) to study the interactions and behaviours of uniquely identified individuals. I studied the shyness, activity and exploration of individuals of this population across contexts: from young to old and between captivity and the wild. This allowed me to confirm that individuals were relatively consistent across their adult lifetimes for all three traits, but only consistent between captivity and the wild for activity and exploration. I then found that high activity levels were positively related to high mating rates and short lifespans. Crucially, lifetime mating success was not related to activity level, indicating that the trade-off between lifespan and mating success was sufficient to allow variation in activity level to persist across generations. I also found that cricket social network structure is stable across generations despite the complete turnover of individuals every year. This social network structure influences sexual selection, with some male crickets heavily involved in networks of both pre- and post-copulatory competition, yet males are unable to use pre-copulatory competition to avoid post-copulatory competition. Additionally, positive assortment by mating rate between males and females may reduce the fitness of males with high mating rates, as they face stronger sperm competition. Finally, I used actor-based models to determine the factors predicting cricket social network structure and to test and reject the social-niche hypothesis for the maintenance of among-individual variation in behaviour. I also demonstrated that little else is needed in a stochastically changing network aside from positive assortment by mating rate to simulate a population with a similar skew in mating success to the one observed in the real cricket population. These results give insights into the importance of trade-offs and stochasticity in maintaining the extensive variation in the natural world.

This dissertation aims to provide a strategic qualitative economic analysis of the illicit drug trafficking industry as it evolved in its modern form across the Americas in the latter part of the 20th century, with principal focus on Colombia and Mexico, and to assess its impact on the security environment in the Americas with the ultimate ambition to provide tangible recommendations for complex disruptive countermeasures. The key premise upon which all the conclusions are later formulated is that trafficking in illicit substances is primarily an entrepreneurial activity aimed to generate profit and economic approach to the issue therefore yields the most promising prospects for tangible results. Narcoterrorism in its own merit, and drug-related violence in general, is contemplated, analyzed and explained as one of the key tactics inherent to the trafficking business model. Finally, a critical assessment of existing counter-narcotics strategies is performed in order to outline deficiencies of these policies with the aim to provide alternative and more effective countermeasures against illicit trafficking.

Lancée en 2005, la politique des pôles de compétitivité marque un renouvellement des politiques industrielles et d'aménagement du territoire. La place faite aux concepts d'innovation et de compétitivité et le recours généralisé et à toutes les échelles à l'appel à projet transforment les modalités de l'intervention publique et ont un impact important sur les hiérarchies territoriales à l'échelle nationale et régionale. Cette thèse envisage la géographie des pôles de compétitivité par deux entrées distinctes mais complémentaires. Elle articule d'une part une réflexion à l'échelle nationale sur cette politique d'innovation et l'impact spatial des choix politiques, et d'autre part, une interrogation sur le fonctionnement et l'organisation spatiale des différents pôles de compétitivité et de leurs réseaux. Elle propose pour ce faire une méthodologie originale d'analyse des réseaux d'innovation en combinant la cartographie et les méthodes d'analyse des réseaux sociaux qui permettent d'inscrire les réseaux d'acteurs dans le raisonnement géographique. Elle montre ainsi les recompositions rapides des réseaux des pôles de compétitivité, marqués par l'ouverture à de nouveaux acteurs et de nouveaux territoires, à l'échelle nationale, comme à l'échelle régionale. En élargissant l'analyse aux politiques régionales d'innovation et aux Investissements d'Avenir, elle montre l'apparition de liens transversaux à l'échelle régionale. Elle propose en conclusion des pistes pour les politiques territorialisées d'innovation et l'identification, l'accompagnement et l'évaluation des réseaux d'innovation. / The competitiveness cluster policy launched in 2005 marks a renewal of regional and industrial policies. The emphasis put on innovation and competitiveness and the widespread use of call for projects on every scale deeply transform public action and have a major impact on territorial hierarchies on a regional and national scale. This research considers the geography of competitiveness clusters in two distinct but complementary ways. It articulates on the one hand an analysis of the national innovation policy and the spatial impact of political choices and on the other hand, empirical questions about the spatial organization of competitiveness clusters and of their networks. It builds a methodological framework based on both mapping and social network analysis in order to include actors' networks in a geographical thinking. It shows the fast transformations of competitiveness clusters' networks and the integration of new actors and new territories both on a regional and national scale. It expands the analysis to regional authorities' policies and to the Investissements d'Avenir to reveal the apparition of cross sector linkages at the regional level. It offers new solutions for innovation and regional policies to identify support and evaluate innovation networks.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:51:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PamelaMB.pdf: 1623623 bytes, checksum: 28d259510491b304e6a430ad385fc8e2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-02-19 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / The dissertation examines the influence of relationships among actors from Brazilian Tourism Political Network who compose the National Council of Tourism in the drafting of the National Tourism Plans (PNT) - PNTs 2003/2007 and 2007/2010, focusing on two main types of interaction: cooperation and information exchange. Therefore, the study departed from the understanding that the concept of tourism as a human phenomenon is configured as an essential conceptual basis for the development, implementation and analysis of public policies. The application of Network Theory and Social Network Analysis serves as an analytical tool, in addition, the use of concepts of Policy Networks enabled to interpret, in distinct aspects, the social reality of tourism in a more precise and detailed way. The study had a cross-sectional with a longitudinal perspective and case study was adopted, thus enabling to apply the model of social network analysis and qualitative approach. Through the survey conducted, it was found that the drafting process of National Tourism Plans was the result of the interaction of a complex network of actors from public and private initiatives, who compose the National Council of Tourism, and that their power of influence came out simultaneously, but not symmetrically, for both their performance/intervention in the meetings, and the possession of economic and organizational resources. Hence, the establishment of partnerships and information exchanges among the actors were underlying to the PNT drafting process, both in problems perception and insertion in the government agenda, as in making proposals to solve them, thus guiding the construction of large programs and programs contained in both investigated plans. / A disserta??o analisa a influ?ncia das rela??es entre atores da Rede Pol?tica do Turismo Brasileiro que comp?em o Conselho Nacional de Turismo no processo de elabora??o dos Planos Nacionais de Turismo (PNT 2003/2007 e PNT 2007/2010), centrando-se em dois principais tipos de intera??o: coopera??o e interc?mbio de informa??es. Para tanto, o estudo parte do entendimento de que a concep??o do turismo como um fen?meno humano, conforma-se como uma base conceitual imprescind?vel para a elabora??o, implementa??o e an?lise de suas pol?ticas p?blicas. A aplica??o da Teoria de Redes e da An?lise de Redes Sociais, funciona como uma ferramenta anal?tica, al?m disso, o uso dos conceitos de Rede Pol?tica (Policy Networks), permitiram interpretar por meio de aspectos diferenciados, a realidade social presente no turismo de forma mais precisa e detalhada. O estudo teve um corte seccional com perspectiva longitudinal e adotou o estudo de caso, permitindo aplicar o modelo de an?lise de redes sociais e a abordagem qualitativa. Atrav?s da pesquisa realizada, constatou-se que o processo de elabora??o dos Planos Nacionais de Turismo foi resultado da intera??o de uma complexa rede de atores p?blicos e privados, os quais comp?em o Conselho Nacional de Turismo, e que o poder de influ?ncia deles se deu simultaneamente, mas n?o simetricamente, pela sua atua??o/ interven??o nas reuni?es, e pela posse de recursos econ?micos e organizacionais. Assim sendo, o estabelecimento de parcerias e as trocas de informa??es entre os atores foram subjacentes ao processo de elabora??o dos PNTs, tanto na percep??o e inser??o de problemas na agenda governamental, quanto na realiza??o de propostas que os solucionassem, norteando assim a constru??o dos macroprogramas e programas contidos em ambos os planos investigados.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T15:15:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GerdivaneFD_DISSERT.pdf: 2461999 bytes, checksum: afd653d46e87e83d8b0144e8086a3d19 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-02-21 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / In this work a study of social networks based on analysis of family names is presented. A basic approach to the mathematical formalism of graphs is developed and then main theoretical models for complex networks are presented aiming to support the analysis of surnames networks models. These, in turn, are worked so as to be drawn leading quantities, such as aggregation coefficient, minimum average path length and connectivity distribution. Based on these quantities, it can be stated that surnames networks are an example of complex network, showing important features such as preferential attachment and small-world character / Neste trabalho ? apresentado um estudo das redes sociais baseado na an?lise dos nomes de fam?lias. Faz-se uma abordagem b?sica do formalismo matem?tico dos grafos e em seguida apresenta-se os principais modelos te?ricos para as Redes Complexas com o objetivo de fundamentar a an?lise das redes dos sobrenomes. Estas, por sua vez, s?o trabalhadas de modo a serem extra?das as principais grandezas, tais como coe ciente de agrega??o, menor caminho m?dio e distribui??o de conectividades. Com base nestas grandezas, pode-se a rmar que as redes de sobrenomes s?o um exemplo de rede complexa, exibindo caracter?sticas importantes como liga??o preferencial e o car?ter de mundo pequeno.