The Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) initiative in England and Wales, underway since 2000, provides specialized care to high risk personality disordered individuals in prison and secure psychiatric facilities. Entry to the service, for a capacity nationwide total of approximately 300 individuals at four sites, is determined in part by risk (whether or not the individual is more likely than not to commit an offence that might be expected to lead to serious physical or psychological harm from which the victim would find it hard to recover). This requires valid procedures for assessing risk to determine individuals’ suitability for entry into and transfer out of the service. Yet little is known about the validity of current risk assessment tools and personality measures with the DSPD population. One of the studies reported, the first of its kind with the DSPD population, described a prospective evaluation of the predictive accuracy of the HCR-20, VRS, Static-99, and Risk Matrix 2000 with 44 admissions to the DSPD unit at a high security forensic psychiatric hospital. Consistent with hypotheses, all tools predicted damage to property. HCR-20 Total and scale scores predicted interpersonal physical aggression with structured final risk judgments also predicting repetitive (2+ incidents of) interpersonal physical aggression. HCR-20 Risk Management scores were significantly associated with imminence of interpersonal physical aggression. The second study described a prospective evaluation of the predictive accuracy of Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Factor and Facet scores as well as scores for Cluster B traits using the International Personality Disorder Examination with the same sample. Partial support for hypotheses was found. Only Borderline PD dimension scores predicted damage to property. Histrionic PD predicted interpersonal physical aggression, and Histrionic, Borderline, and Antisocial PDs all predicted repetitive interpersonal physical aggression. Factor 1 and Facets 1 and 2 were also significant predictors of interpersonal physical aggression. Factor 1 and Histrionic PD scores were also significantly associated with imminence of this type of aggression. Results were discussed in terms of the practical utility of these tools with high risk forensic psychiatric inpatients and the functional link (between personality disorder and violence) criterion for DSPD service entry.

The Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) initiative in England and Wales, underway since 2000, provides specialized care to high risk personality disordered individuals in prison and secure psychiatric facilities. Entry to the service, for a capacity nationwide total of approximately 300 individuals at four sites, is determined in part by risk (whether or not the individual is more likely than not to commit an offence that might be expected to lead to serious physical or psychological harm from which the victim would find it hard to recover). This requires valid procedures for assessing risk to determine individuals’ suitability for entry into and transfer out of the service. Yet little is known about the validity of current risk assessment tools and personality measures with the DSPD population. One of the studies reported, the first of its kind with the DSPD population, described a prospective evaluation of the predictive accuracy of the HCR-20, VRS, Static-99, and Risk Matrix 2000 with 44 admissions to the DSPD unit at a high security forensic psychiatric hospital. Consistent with hypotheses, all tools predicted damage to property. HCR-20 Total and scale scores predicted interpersonal physical aggression with structured final risk judgments also predicting repetitive (2+ incidents of) interpersonal physical aggression. HCR-20 Risk Management scores were significantly associated with imminence of interpersonal physical aggression. The second study described a prospective evaluation of the predictive accuracy of Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Factor and Facet scores as well as scores for Cluster B traits using the International Personality Disorder Examination with the same sample. Partial support for hypotheses was found. Only Borderline PD dimension scores predicted damage to property. Histrionic PD predicted interpersonal physical aggression, and Histrionic, Borderline, and Antisocial PDs all predicted repetitive interpersonal physical aggression. Factor 1 and Facets 1 and 2 were also significant predictors of interpersonal physical aggression. Factor 1 and Histrionic PD scores were also significantly associated with imminence of this type of aggression. Results were discussed in terms of the practical utility of these tools with high risk forensic psychiatric inpatients and the functional link (between personality disorder and violence) criterion for DSPD service entry.

Most sex offenders appear to desist from sexual and other violent offending; however, research on this population has historically focused more on the characteristics of individuals who persist offending versus those who desist from offending. The present study examined change patterns of 563 child sexual abusers’ scores on the Sex Offender Treatment Intervention and Progress Scale, a dynamic risk measure, at three points of time over 2 years. Individuals who did versus did not commit a new serious offense, defined as a new sexual or other violent offense, at 5-year follow-up were contrasted. Desisters demonstrated most changes during their first year in treatment, whereas change among persisters more often occurred during their second year in treatment. All classes of offenders made gains in addressing dynamic risk related to sexually specific needs, whereas desisters made significantly greater gains in social stability needs. Findings are discussed in light of treatment dose allocation and community reentry needs.

Two important developments are addressed by this dissertation. First, the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles-Simplified Version (PICTS-SV) was examined in relation to the original PICTS. Second, the vulnerability of the PICTS-SV to intentional risk minimization (RM) was tested. Two separate studies recruited a total of 150 offenders from a court-mandated residential substance use treatment facility. As expected, Study I established the PICTS-SV's good concurrent validity with the PICTS, especially at the broad composite scale level. For Study II, criminal thinking failed to show the anticipated convergence with HCR-20 risk classifications or forensic correlates. Potential explanations, including a restricted range of risk levels in this sample, are discussed. As a particular strength, the findings highlight that the PICTS-SV, in contrast to many risk measures, displays robust resistance to RM distortion, although revisions to its Df-r validity scale are warranted. These results overall demonstrate strong evidence of the PICTS-SV's utility for assessing a dynamic criminogenic need to inform effective interventions and accurate risk determinations.

The sexual abuse of children is an issue that society must address with urgency and commitment, given the profoundly damaging effects and widespread occurrence of this kind of crime. Providing psychological treatment to identified offenders is an important endeavour of the criminal justice system, with the aim of reducing recidivism and thereby preventing future victims. This dissertation explores a number of areas relevant to the treatment of sexual offenders on a sample of 223 adult males who completed a prison-based programme for child sexual offenders in New Zealand. Specifically, the assessment of treatment outcome and its relationship with recidivism, risk assessment, and the influence of specific offender factors on estimates of treatment outcome and risk were investigated. Study 1 (N = 218) is an independent validation of the validity of the Violence Risk Scale: Sexual Offender Version (VRS:SO; Olver, Wong, Nicholaichuk, & Gordon, 2007), a recently developed risk assessment instrument for sexual offenders that incorporates both static and dynamic risk factors and contains protocols for the assessment of change as a result of treatment. Results indicate support for the inter-rater reliability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity of the VRS:SO with regard to sexual recidivism, with pre-treatment and post-treatment scores showing superior predictive validity relative to a widely used measure of static risk (Static-99; Hanson & Thornton, 1999) and a measure of "Deviance" based on a 4-factor battery of relevant psychometric tests (Allan, Grace, Rutherford, & Hudson, 2007). In Study 2 (N = 218), three separate methods of assessing proximal treatment outcome (representative of three categories of treatment outcome measures that have previously been applied in the literature) are applied and compared in terms of their predictive validity with regard to sexual recidivism, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of their use. These measures are: change on a battery of relevant psychometric tests administered prior to and following treatment; change across treatment on the VRS:SO; and post-treatment ratings of the attainment of treatment goals as measured by a modified version of Hogue’s (1994) Standard Goal Attainment Scaling for Sexual Offenders (SGAS). Results indicate that positive treatment outcomes as measured by all of these methods are associated with reduced sexual recidivism. SGAS scores are identified as being relatively simple and efficient to obtain, however the VRS:SO and the psychometric battery are both able to provide useful pre-treatment clinical information regarding potential treatment targets for a particular offender. Study 3 (N = 223) and Study 4 (N = 216) are explorations of the influence of particular offender characteristics on response to treatment and risk of recidivism. Of particular interest was the personality construct of psychopathy (measured using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, PCL-R; Hare, 1991), and both studies are attempted replications and extensions of previously reported interaction effects involving this construct (Heilbrun, 1979; Seto & Barbaree, 1999). The results of Study 3 indicate that there is no interaction effect between PCL-R scores and treatment outcome (as measured by the SGAS) on sexual recidivism, in contrast to an influential study by Seto and Barbaree (1999). Study 4 reports an interaction effect between PCL-R scores and intelligence on recidivism, such that higher than average IQ scores appear to moderate the well-known association between psychopathy and risk. Overall, the findings reported in this dissertation suggest the importance of considering dynamic factors as well as static factors in sex offender risk assessments, and support the premise that dynamic factors are changeable, with change being associated with changes in recidivism. The potential for certain offender characteristics to influence treatment response and risk of recidivism is highlighted, and several areas for further exploration are identified.

The sexual abuse of children is an issue that society must address with urgency and commitment, given the profoundly damaging effects and widespread occurrence of this kind of crime. Providing psychological treatment to identified offenders is an important endeavour of the criminal justice system, with the aim of reducing recidivism and thereby preventing future victims. This dissertation explores a number of areas relevant to the treatment of sexual offenders on a sample of 223 adult males who completed a prison-based programme for child sexual offenders in New Zealand. Specifically, the assessment of treatment outcome and its relationship with recidivism, risk assessment, and the influence of specific offender factors on estimates of treatment outcome and risk were investigated. Study 1 (N = 218) is an independent validation of the validity of the Violence Risk Scale: Sexual Offender Version (VRS:SO; Olver, Wong, Nicholaichuk, & Gordon, 2007), a recently developed risk assessment instrument for sexual offenders that incorporates both static and dynamic risk factors and contains protocols for the assessment of change as a result of treatment. Results indicate support for the inter-rater reliability, concurrent validity, and predictive validity of the VRS:SO with regard to sexual recidivism, with pre-treatment and post-treatment scores showing superior predictive validity relative to a widely used measure of static risk (Static-99; Hanson & Thornton, 1999) and a measure of "Deviance" based on a 4-factor battery of relevant psychometric tests (Allan, Grace, Rutherford, & Hudson, 2007). In Study 2 (N = 218), three separate methods of assessing proximal treatment outcome (representative of three categories of treatment outcome measures that have previously been applied in the literature) are applied and compared in terms of their predictive validity with regard to sexual recidivism, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of their use. These measures are: change on a battery of relevant psychometric tests administered prior to and following treatment; change across treatment on the VRS:SO; and post-treatment ratings of the attainment of treatment goals as measured by a modified version of Hogue’s (1994) Standard Goal Attainment Scaling for Sexual Offenders (SGAS). Results indicate that positive treatment outcomes as measured by all of these methods are associated with reduced sexual recidivism. SGAS scores are identified as being relatively simple and efficient to obtain, however the VRS:SO and the psychometric battery are both able to provide useful pre-treatment clinical information regarding potential treatment targets for a particular offender. Study 3 (N = 223) and Study 4 (N = 216) are explorations of the influence of particular offender characteristics on response to treatment and risk of recidivism. Of particular interest was the personality construct of psychopathy (measured using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, PCL-R; Hare, 1991), and both studies are attempted replications and extensions of previously reported interaction effects involving this construct (Heilbrun, 1979; Seto & Barbaree, 1999). The results of Study 3 indicate that there is no interaction effect between PCL-R scores and treatment outcome (as measured by the SGAS) on sexual recidivism, in contrast to an influential study by Seto and Barbaree (1999). Study 4 reports an interaction effect between PCL-R scores and intelligence on recidivism, such that higher than average IQ scores appear to moderate the well-known association between psychopathy and risk. Overall, the findings reported in this dissertation suggest the importance of considering dynamic factors as well as static factors in sex offender risk assessments, and support the premise that dynamic factors are changeable, with change being associated with changes in recidivism. The potential for certain offender characteristics to influence treatment response and risk of recidivism is highlighted, and several areas for further exploration are identified.

La gestion de la continuité des opérations est un cadre complet visant à éviter que les événements perturbateurs n’affectent les opérations commerciales, à rétablir rapidement les activités et à réduire les dommages potentiels correspondants pour les systèmes énergétiques, tels que les centrales nucléaires. Cette thèse propose des discussions sur les aspects suivants: développement de méthodes appropriées d'évaluation des risques afin d'intégrer les données de surveillance de l'état et les données d'inspection pour une mise à jour et des pronostics robustes et en temps réel du profil de risque. Pour tenir compte de l'incertitude des données de surveillance de l'état, un modèle de mélange gaussien de Markov caché est développé pour modéliser les données de surveillance de l'état. Un réseau bayésien est appliqué pour intégrer les deux sources de données. Pour améliorer l'applicabilité de la continuité des opérations dans la pratique, les variables variant dans le temps considèrent l'indice de continuité des opérations, par ex. la dégradation des composants, les revenus en fonction du temps, etc. sont pris en compte dans le processus de modélisation de la continuité des activités. Sur la base de l'indice de continuité d'activité proposé, une méthode d'optimisation conjointe prenant en compte toutes les mesures de sécurité dans le processus d'évolution des événements, y compris les étapes de prévention, d'atténuation, d'urgence et de récupération, est développée pour améliorer la continuité des opérations du système avec des ressources limitées. Les méthodologies proposées sont appliquées aux centrales nucléaires contre les événements perturbateurs. / Business continuity management is a comprehensive framework to prevent the disruptive events from impacting the business operations, quickly recovering business and reducing the corresponding potential damages for energy system, such as nuclear power plants (NPPs). This dissertation provides discussions on the following aspects: developing appropriate risk assessment methods in order to integrate condition monitoring data and inspection data for a robust and real-time risk profile updating and prognostics. To account for the uncertainty of condition monitoring data, a hidden Markov gaussian mixture model is developed to model the condition monitoring data. A Bayesian network is applied to integrate the two data sources. For improving applicability of business continuity in practice, time-variant variables regard business continuity index, e.g. component degradation, time-dependent revenue, etc are taken into consideration in the business continuity modelling process. Based on the proposed business continuity index, a joint optimization method considering all the safety measures in event evolvement process including prevention stage, mitigation stage, emergency stage and recovery stage is developed to enhance system business continuity under limited resources. The proposed methodologies are applied to NPP against disruptive event.

This thesis aims to fill this gap between static and dynamic risk measures. It presents a theory of dynamic risk measures based directly on classical, static risk measures. This allows for a direct connection of the static, the discrete time as well as the continuous time setting. Unlike the existing literature this approach leads to a interpretable pendant to the well-understood static risk measures. As a key concept the notion of divisible families of risk measures is introduced. These families of risk measures admit a dynamic version in continuous time. Moreover, divisibility allows the definition of the risk generator, a nonlinear extension of the classical infinitesimal generator. Based on this extension we derive a nonlinear version of Dynkins lemma as well as risk-averse Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equations.

Les systèmes d'information sont une cible de plus en plus attractive pour les attaquants. Dans cette thèse de doctorat, nous construisons une méthodologie complète d'analyse statique et dynamique de risque prenant en compte la connaissance à priori d'un système avec les événements dynamiques, afin de proposer des réponses permettant d'empêcher les attaques futures. Tout d'abord, nous étudions comment corriger les attaques potentielles qui peuvent arriver dans un système, en s'appuyant sur les graphes d'attaque logiques. Nous proposons une méthodologie de remédiation corrigeant les chemins d'attaque les plus significatifs. Les remédiations candidates sont classées en fonction de leur coût opérationnel et leur impact sur le système. Les graphes d'attaques ne peuvent pas être directement utilisés pour l'évaluation dynamique de risque. Nous étendons donc ce modèle pour construire des modèles d'analyse dynamique de risque basés sur des réseaux bayésiens. Le modèle hybride d'évaluation de risque se divise en deux modèles complémentaires: (1) Les modèles de corrélation de risque, permettant d'analyser les attaques en cours et fournir les probabilités de compromission des états du système, (2) les modèles d'évaluation du risque futur, permettant évaluer les attaques futures les plus probables. Nous analysons la sensibilité des paramètres probabilistes du modèle et en validons les résultats à partir de graphes d'attaque topologiques / Information systems constitute an increasingly attractive target for attackers. Given the number and complexity of attacks, security teams need to focus their actions, in order to select the most appropriate security controls. Because of the threat posed by advanced multi-step attacks, it is difficult for security operators to fully cover all vulnerabilities when deploying countermeasures. In this PhD thesis, we build a complete framework for static and dynamic risk assessment including prior knowledge on the information system and dynamic events, proposing responses to prevent future attacks. First, we study how to remediate the potential attacks that can happen in a system, using logical attack graphs. We build a remediation methodology to prevent the most relevant attack paths extracted from a logical attack graph. In order to help an operator to choose between several remediation candidates, we rank them according to a cost of remediation combining operational and impact costs. Then, we study the dynamic attacks that can occur in a system. Attack graphs are not directly suited for dynamic risk assessment. Thus, we extend this mode to build dynamic risk assessment models to evaluate the attacks that are the most likely. The hybrid model is subdivided in two complementary models: (1) the first ones analysing ongoing attacks and provide the hosts' compromise probabilities, and (2) the second ones assessing the most likely future attacks. We study the sensitivity of their probabilistic parameters. Finally, we validate the accuracy and usage of both models in the domain of cybersecurity, by building them from a topological attack graph

This Diploma thesis engages in problematic of the identification of needs and evaluation of risks by offenders of crime acts in the standpoint of developing the prediction tool, which could be used as a common tool in a prison and justice profession. This thesis is divided into two parts - the theoretical one and the empirical one. In the first - theoretical - part I introduce the basic concept of the evaluation of risks and its utilization in current prediction tools. I also mention here a historical development of these tools and their dividing according to the usage of statistical or dynamical factors. After that I also shortly introduce these days most common used tools in other countries. Then I focus on the development of czech (czechoslovak) evaluation tools and their specifics. Last chapter of the theoretical part introduces SARPO project in the meaning of slight description of its history and showing main ideas. Data analysis is based on dataset from SARPO 1 research (2009), which had to verify SARPO 1 utility tool. Besides the presentation of results and characteristics of dataset I will verify the propriety of designed mathematical model for calculation of risk through first and also second validization essay. Part of the analysis is also suggestion of alternative model for prediction...