SoundCloud and Bandcamp as alternative music platforms

We examine two ‘producer-oriented’ audio distribution platforms, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, that have been important repositories for the hopes of musicians, commentators and audiences that digital technologies and cultural platforms might promote democratisation of the cultural industries, and we compare their achievements and limitations in this respect. We show that the emancipatory elements enshrined in SoundCloud’s ‘bottom-up’ abundance are compromised by two elements that underpin the platform: the problematic ‘culture of connectivity’ of the social media systems to which it must remain integrally linked, and the systems of intellectual property that the firm has been increasingly compelled to enforce. By contrast, it seems that Bandcamp has been relatively stable in financial terms while being at odds with some key aspects of ‘platformization’, and we explore the possibility that some of the platform’s apparent success may derive from how its key features makes it attractive to indie musicians and fans drawn to an independent ethos. Nevertheless, we argue, even while in some respects Bandcamp acts more effectively as an ‘alternative’ than does SoundCloud, the former is also congruent economically and discursively with how platforms capitalise on the activity of self-managing, self-auditing, specialist, worker-users

Integrated treatment of reverse osmosis brines coupling electrocoagulation with advanced oxidation processes

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. The potential of integrating electrocoagulation (EleC) with two-stage reverse osmosis (RO) to enhance desalination of secondary/tertiary effluents through removal of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and scaling salts from brines was studied. EleC appears advantageous due to the high electrical conductivity of RO brines and low residual ions concentration. EleC was performed in batch mode in a flow-through cell with recirculation through a stirred reservoir at 9.4 mA/cm2 current density. Anode was made of Fe or Al as indicated, and cathode of stainless steel. Chemical coagulation (CC) with FeCl3 was tested as reference. EleC resulted in effective removal of phosphate (>99%), carbonate (88–98%) and DOM (40–50%) at a high Faradaic efficiency (>90%). Fe-EleC resulted less suitable than Al-EleC due to partial Fe(II) oxidation at pH 5.5 required for optimal DOM removal, leaving high Fe content and consequently turbidity in the supernatant, whereas residual Al was negligible. At optimal conditions Al release was 75 mg/L for 1st-stage brines-RO1 (2-fold concentrated) and 300 mg/L for 2nd-stage brines-RO2 (∼8.3-fold concentrated), corresponding to a specific energy consumption of 0.30 and 0.23 [Formula presented], respectively. Similar results were obtained with CC, however, its main disadvantage was the considerable increase of chlorides in the supernatant. Since coagulation removes quenching components from brines, coupling EleC with advanced oxidation processes (AOP), either UVA/TiO2 or UVC/H2O2, was also evaluated for oxidation of model micropollutants from brines prior to discharge. Either EleC or CC in tandem with AOP increased micropollutants oxidation by 3–4 fold compared to raw brines, achieving practically complete transformation

Case study: grunge music and grunge style

This paper is purposed to examine the impact of grunge music on fashion and to explain how grunge music is reflected in grunge style. The research methodology applied is a case study on grunge music and grunge style. Key findings suggest that different elements of grunge music had a great impact on the evolution of grunge style: Mentality and philosophy of the movement, musical style and sound as well as lyrical concerns are incorporated by grunge style. Commercial exploitation of grunge partly led to its downfall. Moreover, the original spirit of the movement is not commonly shared by all sub-genres’ respective contemporary styles. Musicians had great impact on the evolution of grunge style and unintentional rose to style icons. The research is limited by the amount of academic literature concerning the connection between grunge music and grunge style. Therefore, journal entries and blogs are used as reference as well