摘要:
A wide spectrum of chemicals, toxins and microbiological materials including some bacterial exotoxins has potential for use in a warfare or terror attacks. Both civilian and military sources predict that over the next decade the threat from proliferation of these chemical and biological warfare agents will increase significantly. Recent terrorist events and threats have shown that an urgent and effective method is required for sensing the threat detection, especially chemical and biological warfare agents. So, reliable and rapid detection and identification of these biochemical agents is one of the primary concerns that physicians and other health staff have to deal with. In this paper, biosensor, which is one of these prominent detection systems is overviewed from the aspect of medical response against these weapons. Application fields of biosensors highlighting the use in detection and identification of biochemical weapons of mass destruction have been described to emphasize the trends on new technology of sensors. Various types of sensors have been developed and extensively evaluated on field. This paper also describes this developing technology for detecting such agents. It may be envisaged that national capability to detect these terror agents rapidly should be improved in terms of recognition of the exposure.
摘要:
The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is often considered to be a comparatively weak regime. It lacks several components regularly used to address other unconventional weapons (such as nuclear or chemical weapons). I argue that given the peculiarities of ensuring that biology is not used as a weapon, an alternative model might be better suited to strengthen international peace and security and to serve the needs of stakeholder communities. The first section of the paper identifies a set of ten characteristics desirable in any contemporary effort to tackle the potential hostile use of biology. The second section uses these characteristics to assess the utility of traditional arms control approaches. It then discusses how the BWC differs from existing models and characterizes current efforts under the BWC as an evolved networked model. Then I argue that a comparison with the identified desirable characteristics suggests, that in the case of biological weapons at least, an evolved networked model could offer additional benefits for international peace and security. The final section of the paper then examines, at a practical level, how the evolved networked model, as developed in the context of the BWC, meets specific needs of key stakeholder communities.