Publications by authors named "Danielle Andrews"

Compostable materials constitute roughly half of waste generated globally, but only 5% of waste is actually processed through composting, suggesting that expanding compost programs may be an effective way to process waste. Compostable waste, if properly collected and processed, has value-added end use options including: residential and park landscaping, remediation of brownfield sites, and as growing media in urban agriculture (UA). Since 2001, our lab has partnered with The Food Project, a non-profit focused on youth leadership development through urban farming.

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Due to rises in antibiotic resistance, fate and transport of antibiotics in soil systems requires greater understanding to determine potential risks to human and animal health. Adsorption coefficients (K and K) are standard measures for determining sorption capacity and partitioning behavior of organic contaminants in solid matrices. Frequently, sorption studies use higher antibiotic concentrations (mg L) and larger spiked water volume to mass of soil (>5:1), which may not reflect sorption behaviors of antibiotics at low concentrations (ng L - μg L) in natural soils.

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Acceptable palatability of an oral dosage form is crucial to patient compliance. Excipients can be utilised within a formulation to mask the bitterness of a drug. One such category is the bitter-blockers.

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The midsession reversal task involves a simultaneous discrimination between Stimulus 1 (S1) and Stimulus 2 (S2) in which, for the first half of each session, choice of S1 is reinforced and S2 is not, and for the last half of each session, choice of S2 is reinforced and S1 is not. With this task, even after considerable training, pigeons tend to make anticipatory errors as they approach the reversal and they continue to make perseverative errors following the reversal. In the present research, we tested the hypothesis that reversal accuracy would improve by devaluing choice of S2 relative to S1.

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When pigeons are given a choice between 50% signaled reinforcement and 100% reinforcement they typically do not choose optimally, sometimes even preferring 50% reinforcement. Smith and Zentall (J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process 42:212-220, 2016) proposed that choice depends primarily on the predictive value of the signal for reinforcement associated with each alternative (both 100% reinforcement) and not the frequency of the signal for reinforcement (50% vs. 100%).

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Animals are expected to minimize time and effort to reinforcement. Thus, not pecking should be preferred over pecking. However, even if time is held constant, pigeons often peck when it is allowed but not required (e.

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It has been assumed that when pigeons learn how to match to sample, they learn simple stimulus-response chains but not the concept of sameness. However, transfer to novel stimuli has been influenced by pigeons' tendency to be neophobic. We trained pigeons on matching ( n = 7) and mismatching ( n = 8) with colors as samples and, with each sample, one color as the nonmatching comparison.

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Procrastination is the tendency to put off initiation or completion of a task. Although people are typically known to procrastinate, recent research suggests that they sometimes "pre-crastinate" by initiating a task sooner than they need to (Rosenbaum et al. in Psychological Science, 25(7), 1487-1496, 2014).

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Animals choose suboptimally when provided with cues that signal whether reinforcement is coming or not. For example, pigeons do not prefer an alternative that always provides them with a signal for reinforcement over an alternative that provides them with a signal for reinforcement only half of the time and a signal for the absence of reinforcement the rest of the time. In the present research, we tested the hypothesis that if the results of the choice are delayed, pigeons will choose less suboptimally.

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With rising demands on water supplies necessitating water reuse, wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent is often used to irrigate agricultural lands. Emerging contaminants, like pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), are frequently found in effluent due to limited removal during WWTP processes. Concern has arisen about the environmental fate of PPCPs, especially regarding plant uptake.

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The increase in endocrine-disrupting compounds in the environment has generated research focused on the behavior of these compounds in natural soil and water ecosystems. To understand how estrogens behave in the soil environment as a result of 25+ yr of wastewater irrigation, soils from Penn State's "Living Filter" wastewater irrigation site were extracted and analyzed for two natural estrogens (17β-estradiol and estrone) and one synthetic estrogen (17α-ethynylestradiol). Soil estrogen concentrations were compared for two independent variables: type of land cover and sampling time.

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We investigated the use of a therapeutic vaccine, TroVax in patients undergoing surgical resection of colorectal cancer liver metastases. Systemic immunity generated by vaccination before and after resection of metastases was measured in addition to assessing safety and analyzing the function and phenotype of tumor-associated lymphocytes. Twenty patients were scheduled to receive 2 TroVax vaccinations at 2-week intervals preoperatively and 2 postoperatively; if immune responses were detected, 2 further vaccinations were offered.

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