Viability of<i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>in cough aerosols generated by persons with cystic fibrosis
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
<h3>Background</h3> Person-to-person transmission of respiratory pathogens, including <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i>, is a challenge facing many cystic fibrosis (CF) centres. Viable <i>P aeruginosa</i> are contained in aerosols produced during coughing, raising the possibility of airborne transmission. <h3>Methods</h3> Using purpose-built equipment, we measured viable <i>P aeruginosa</i> in cough aerosols at 1, 2 and 4 m from the subject (distance) and after allowing aerosols to age for 5, 15 and 45 min in a slowly rotating drum to minimise gravitational settling and inertial impaction (duration). Aerosol particles were captured and sized employing an Anderson Impactor and cultured using conventional microbiology. Sputum was also cultured and lung function and respiratory muscle strength measured. <h3>Results</h3> Nineteen patients with CF, mean age 25.8 (SD 9.2) years, chronically infected with <i>P aeruginosa</i>, and 10 healthy controls, 26.5 (8.7) years, participated. Viable <i>P aeruginosa</i> were detected in cough aerosols from all patients with CF, but not from controls; travelling 4 m in 17/18 (94%) and persisting for 45 min in 14/18 (78%) of the CF group. Marked inter-subject heterogeneity of <i>P aeruginosa</i> aerosol colony counts was seen and correlated strongly (r=0.73–0.90) with sputum bacterial loads. Modelling decay of viable <i>P aeruginosa</i> in a clinic room suggested that at the recommended ventilation rate of two air changes per hour almost 50 min were required for 90% to be removed after an infected patient left the room. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Viable <i>P aeruginosa</i> in cough aerosols travel further and last longer than recognised previously, providing additional evidence of airborne transmission between patients with CF.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it