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A Novel Method and Its Application to Measuring Pathogen Decay in Bioaerosols from Patients with Respiratory Disease

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, July 2016
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
13 news outlets
blogs
1 blog
twitter
8 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages

Citations

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18 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
52 Mendeley
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Title
A Novel Method and Its Application to Measuring Pathogen Decay in Bioaerosols from Patients with Respiratory Disease
Published in
PLOS ONE, July 2016
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0158763
Pubmed ID
Authors

Graham R. Johnson, Luke D. Knibbs, Timothy J. Kidd, Claire E. Wainwright, Michelle E. Wood, Kay A. Ramsay, Scott C. Bell, Lidia Morawska

Abstract

This work aimed to develop an in vivo approach for measuring the duration of human bioaerosol infectivity. To achieve this, techniques designed to target short-term and long-term bioaerosol aging, were combined in a tandem system and optimized for the collection of human respiratory bioaerosols, without contamination. To demonstrate the technique, cough aerosols were sampled from two persons with cystic fibrosis and chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. Measurements and cultures from aerosol ages of 10, 20, 40, 900 and 2700 seconds were used to determine the optimum droplet nucleus size for pathogen transport and the airborne bacterial biological decay. The droplet nuclei containing the greatest number of colony forming bacteria per unit volume of airborne sputum were between 1.5 and 2.6 μm. Larger nuclei of 3.9 μm, were more likely to produce a colony when impacted onto growth media, because the greater volume of sputum comprising the larger droplet nuclei, compensated for lower concentrations of bacteria within the sputum of larger nuclei. Although more likely to produce a colony, the larger droplet nuclei were small in number, and the greatest numbers of colonies were instead produced by nuclei from 1.5 to 5.7 μm. Very few colonies were produced by smaller droplet nuclei, despite their very large numbers. The concentration of viable bacteria within the dried sputum comprising the droplet nuclei exhibited an orderly dual decay over time with two distinct half-lives. Nuclei exhibiting a rapid biological decay process with a 10 second half-life were quickly exhausted, leaving only a subset characterized by a half-life of greater than 10 minutes. This finding implied that a subset of bacteria present in the aerosol was resistant to rapid biological decay and remained viable in room air long enough to represent an airborne infection risk.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 8 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 52 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 52 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 8 15%
Student > Master 8 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 7 13%
Student > Bachelor 5 10%
Other 3 6%
Other 11 21%
Unknown 10 19%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 9 17%
Engineering 7 13%
Immunology and Microbiology 5 10%
Environmental Science 4 8%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 2 4%
Other 12 23%
Unknown 13 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 106. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 July 2021.
All research outputs
#334,202
of 22,880,230 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#4,929
of 195,163 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#7,543
of 355,364 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#118
of 4,438 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,880,230 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 195,163 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 355,364 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4,438 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.