An improved and highly efficient geometry for facemasks

The dataset provided here is associated with the work "An improved and highly efficient geometry for facemasks," by Cappa et al, currently submitted for publication. This includes measurements made of the influence of a new cloth mask, designed originally for singing, on the emission of micron-scale aerosols from various expiratory activities (singing, speaking) and on inhalation of ambient particles. The dataset provided here includes *.txt files exported from an Aerodynamic Particle Sizer that contain time-series of the abundance of particles, by size (in particles per second), measured in the breath of study participants across experiments wherein people were either talking or singing. Also, *.txt files of the measured amplitude of the speech or singing associated with these activities are provided. Data are provided for conditions when people were not wearing any masks or were wearing the new singing masks. For wearing of singing masks, data are provided for participants singing while in various physical orientations with respect to the sampling instrument. Further details, including the file naming scheme, are provided in the associated Read Me file and the Usage Notes. All personally identifying information has been removed.

Methods
Participants were asked to perform various expiratory activities (speaking the Rainbow Passage (Talk), singing Ode to Joy (Ode), or singing a song of the participants choice (Song)) while wearing no mask or newly designed singing mask). Study participants performed these activities in front of a funnel connected to an aerodynamic particle sizer (APS, TSI Model 3021), which measured the size-dependent aerosol concentration, and to a condensation particle counter (CPC, TSI Model 3775). Size-dependent concentrations were measured every 1-second during the activities. Additionally, the intensity and duration of the talking and coughing activities were measured using a calibrated microphone. The APS  and CPC inlet was located in a HEPA-filtered laminar flow hood to reduce background counts to near zero. Participants performed activities in different orientations with respect to their position in front of the funnel. These included:

No mask: facing straight on, wearing no mask
Forward (F): facing straight on, wearing mask
Top (T): Head tilted downwards to have bridge of nose in front of funnel, wearing mask
Side (S): Head turned sideways to have edge of mask against cheek in front of funnel, wearing mask
Bottom (B): Head tilted upwards or above funnel to have chin area in front of funnel, wearing mask

Further details are provided in the associated manuscript (Cappa et al., submitted).