Protecting buildings and their occupants from biological and chemical attacks to ensure continuous building operations is seen as an urgent need in the Department of Defense, given recent technological advances and the changing threats. Toward this end, the Department of Defense established the Immune Building Program to develop protective systems to deter biological and chemical attacks on military facilities and minimize the impacts of attacks should they occur. At the request of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the National Research Council convened a committee to provide guiding principles for protecting buildings from airborne biological or chemical threat agents and outline the variables and options to consider in designing building protection systems. This report addresses such components of building protection as building design and planning strategies; heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems; filtration; threat detection and identification technologies; and operational responses. It recommends that building protection systems be designed to accommodate changing building conditions, new technologies, and emerging threats. Although the report's focus is on protection of military facilities, the guiding principles it offers are applicable to protection of public facilities as well.

The Nat. Inst. for Occupational Safety and Health conducts research to prevent work-related illness, injury, disability, and death. On Oct. 8, 2001, the Office of Homeland Security (OHS) was established, which develops and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive nat. strategy to secure the U.S. from terrorist threats or attacks. In Jan. 2002, the OHS formed the Interagency Workgroup on Building Air Protection, which includes representatives from various fed. agencies, including NIOSH. This document is the result of building vulnerability assessments conducted by NIOSH in 2002, as well a significant content and review recommendations provided by Workgroup members. Illustrations.

Detection and Intelligent Systems for Homeland Security features articles from the Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security covering advanced technology for image and video interpretation systems used for surveillance, which help in solving such problems as identifying faces from live streaming or stored videos. Biometrics for human identification, including eye retinas and irises, and facial patterns are also presented. The book then provides information on sensors for detection of explosive and radioactive materials and methods for sensing chemical and biological agents in urban environments.

This self-contained handbook and ready reference examines aerosol science and technology in depth, providing a detailed insight into this progressive field. As such, it covers fundamental concepts, experimental methods, and a wide variety of applications, ranging from aerosol filtration to biological aerosols, and from the synthesis of carbon nanotubes to aerosol reactors. Written by a host of internationally renowned experts in the field, this is an essential resource for chemists and engineers in the chemical and materials disciplines across multiple industries, as well as ideal supplementary reading in graduate level courses.

The new field of toxicogenomics presents a potentially powerful set of tools to better understand the health effects of exposures to toxicants in the environment. At the request of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Research Council assembled a committee to identify the benefits of toxicogenomics, the challenges to achieving them, and potential approaches to overcoming such challenges. The report concludes that realizing the potential of toxicogenomics to improve public health decisions will require a concerted effort to generate data, make use of existing data, and study data in new waysâ€"an effort requiring funding, interagency coordination, and data management strategies.

This document identifies actions that a building owner or manager can implement without undue delay to enhance occupant protection from an airborne chemical, biological, or radiological (CBR) attack.