Theorizing stakeholders of sustainability in the digital age

Stakeholder theory, originally introduced in 1984 by philosopher Edward Freeman, is among the most influential theories today addressing the complex interplay of societal actors. It underwent several transformations and expansions, but the original Freeman model as well as the latest approaches places the corporation at the center positioning the theory as management driven. In this article—from a sustainability science perspective—we argue that sustainability could also be considered as the center, around which societal actors are grouped, because everyone, individuals as well as stakeholders, have a stake in a ‘common future’ that is built on the transformative concept of sustainability. Next to this shift of perspective from corporation to sustainability at the center, we advance the concept of sustainability stakeholders with the new paradigm of the digital age we (are about to) live in: the proposed sustainability-centered stakeholder theory is developed to incorporate novel parameters as brought about by digitalization (such as big data, real-time transparency, algorithmic correlations, predictive analytics, or changing privacy standards). Hence, we classify the stakeholders of sustainability according to their roles as “big data stakeholders:” collectors, generators, and utilizers of big data. This digital sustainability stakeholder model operationalizes the complex interplay between stakeholders focused on their ‘stake’ in sustainability and a common future and illustrates their roles in the digital age. Thus, it offers a normative framework to analyze stakeholders’ responsibility to contribute to, advance, promote, and achieve sustainability.     

Can real-life driving ability be predicted by the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test?

Objective: Drowsy driving is a profound road safety issue. In patients with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), the Maintenance of Wakefulness Test (MWT) is commonly used to evaluate driving ability. However, there is little evidence that MWT predicts driving performance, and several sleep latency cutoffs have been suggested.

Methods: Based on a retrospective chart analysis of patients with an MWT and a driving ability assessment between January 2006 and November 2014, we identified 63 studies in 60 patients. The driving ability assessment judged the patients as qualified or disqualified for commercial driving. MWT latencies to 3?s of alpha activity, 3?s of drowsiness (microsleep), and sleep onset were compared between qualified and disqualified patients and their validity to identify driving qualification was evaluated.

Results: Disqualified patients had shorter alpha, microsleep, and sleep latencies, but the latency distributions were widely overlapping. MWT accuracy to predict driving performance was poor: two thirds of short sleep latencies were false positives. Adding information from alpha and microsleep latencies added little extra accuracy.

Conclusions: MWT results correlate poorly with driving performance in a 2-h test irrespective of sleep latency cutoff or added alpha/microsleep latency data. Better diagnostic tools are needed to evaluate driving performance in patients with EDS.     

The efficiency of the multi-walled carbon nanotubes used for antibiotics removal from wastewaters generated by animal farms

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In the recent years, residual antibiotics are considered to be emerging environmental pollutants due to their continuous input and persistence into...     

Toxicity of two types of silver nanoparticles to aquatic crustaceans Daphnia magna and Thamnocephalus platyurus

Although silver nanoparticles (NPs) are increasingly used in various consumer products and produced in industrial scale, information on harmful effects of nanosilver to environmentally relevant organisms is still scarce. This paper studies the adverse effects of silver NPs to two aquatic crustaceans, Daphnia magna and Thamnocephalus platyurus. For that, silver NPs were synthesized where Ag is covalently attached to poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP). In parallel, the toxicity of collargol (protein-coated nanosilver) and AgNO₃ was analyzed. Both types of silver NPs were highly toxic to both crustaceans: the EC50 values in artificial freshwater were 15–17 ppb for D. magna and 20–27 ppb for T. platyurus. The natural water (five different waters with dissolved organic carbon from 5 to 35 mg C/L were studied) mitigated the toxic effect of studied silver compounds up to 8-fold compared with artificial freshwater. The toxicity of silver NPs in all test media was up to 10-fold lower than that of soluble silver salt, AgNO₃. The pattern of the toxic response of both crustacean species to the silver compounds was almost similar in artificial freshwater and in natural waters. The chronic 21-day toxicity of silver NPs to D. magna in natural water was at the part-per-billion level, and adult mortality was more sensitive toxicity test endpoint than the reproduction (the number of offspring per adult).     

Potential of Pulsed Light to Inactivate Bacteriophage MS2 in Simple Liquid Medium and on Complex Foodstuffs

The virucidal efficacy of a pulsed light treatment applied to viral suspensions, glass beads and herb powders was studied for the F-RNA bacteriophage MS2. The experimental results obtained demonstrated the high potential of this technology to efficiently decontaminate simple matrices but underlined the complexity of application to complex food matrices.