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Naturally Occurring Incidents as Facsimiles for Biochemical Terrorist Attacks

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Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3975))

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Abstract

Research on techniques for effective bioterrorism surveillance is limited by the availability of data from actual bioterrorism incidents. This research explores the potential contribution of naturally occurring incidents, such as Florida wildfires, as reasonable facsimiles for airborne bioterrorist attacks. Hospital discharge data on respiratory illnesses are analyzed to uncover patterns that might resemble the effects of an aerosolized biological or chemical attack. Previous research [3] is extended by (1) utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to introduce appropriate spatial data and (2) increasing the sophistication of the spatial analysis by applying the retrospective space-time permutation model available through SaTScanTM. Initial results are promising and lead to a confirmation that Florida wildfires are potentially interesting surrogates for aerosolized biochemical terrorist attacks. Research implications are discussed in reference to the on-going development of effective bioterrorism surveillance systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33620

    Jamie L. Griffiths, Donald J. Berndt & Alan R. Hevner

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  1. Jamie L. Griffiths
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  2. Donald J. Berndt
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  3. Alan R. Hevner
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine

    Sharad Mehrotra

  2. MIS Department, University of Arizona, 85721, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Daniel D. Zeng

  3. Department of Management Information Systems, Eller College of Management, The University of Arizona, 85721, AZ, USA

    Hsinchun Chen

  4. University of Texas at Dallas,  

    Bhavani Thuraisingham

  5. Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190, Beijing, China

    Fei-Yue Wang

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Griffiths, J.L., Berndt, D.J., Hevner, A.R. (2006). Naturally Occurring Incidents as Facsimiles for Biochemical Terrorist Attacks. In: Mehrotra, S., Zeng, D.D., Chen, H., Thuraisingham, B., Wang, FY. (eds) Intelligence and Security Informatics. ISI 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3975. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11760146_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11760146_20

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-34478-0

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