Researching Intimacies and New Media:Methodological Opportunities and Challenges

Researching intimacies and new media encompasses a wide variety of intersecting practices and relationships. This special issue presents contributions from researchers who are investigating practices of intimacy mediated either wholly or in part through new media in which a variety of different methodological opportunities and challenges are highlighted and discussed. Existing research has addressed different combinations of new media, intimacy, and methodology, but there remains space for a dedicated focus on the ways in which these areas are interrelated and entangled. The articles in this special issue build up a conversation around this particular intersection from a range of directions, from reflections on specific technological devices/apps and their promotion of particular forms of intimacies that may lead to (dis)comfort and (dis)connection, to the intimate—and sometimes risky—investments in research processes and fieldwork, as well as the ethical frameworks and decision-making processes guiding the research

The effect of low temperature and low light intensity on nutrient removal from municipal wastewater by purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB)

There has been increased interest in alternative wastewater treatment systems to improve nutrient recovery while achieving acceptable TCOD, TN, and TP discharge limits. Purple phototrophic bacteria (PPB) have a high potential for simultaneous nutrient removal and recovery from wastewater. This study evaluated the PPB performance and its growth at different operating conditions with a focus on HRT and light optimization using a continuous-flow membrane photobioreactor (PHB). Furthermore, the effect of low temperature on PPB performance was assessed to evaluate the PPB’s application in cold-climate regions. In order to evaluate PPB performance, TCOD, TN, and TP removal efficiencies and Monod kinetic parameters were analyzed at different HRTs (36, 18, and 9 h), at temperatures of 22°C and 11°C and infrared (IR) light intensities of 50, 3, and 1.4 Wm-2. The results indicated that low temperature had no detrimental impact on PPB’s performance. The photobioreactor (PHB) with cold-enriched PPB has a high potential to treat municipal wastewater with effluent concentrations below target limits (TCOD˂ 50mgL-1, TN˂10 mgL-1, and TP˂1 mgL-1). Monod kinetic parameters Ks, K, Y, and Kd were estimated at 20-29 mgCODL-1, 1.6-1.9 mgCOD(mgVSS.d)-1, 0.47 mgVSS mgCOD-1, and 0.07-0.08 d-1 at temperatures of 11°C-22°C respectively. The results of the steady-state mass balances showed TCOD, TN, and TP recoveries of 80%-86%, which reflected PPB’s substrate and nutrient assimilation. Previous studies utilized high light intensities (˃ 50 Wm-2) to provide PPB with the maximum energy required for its growth. In order to enable the PPB technology as a practical approach in municipal wastewater treatment, light intensity must be optimized. Based on the literature, there is no study on PPB performance at low light intensities using a continuous-flow membrane photobioreactor. The effect of low light intensities of 3, and 1.4 Wm-2 on PPB performance was addressed in this study. The results indicated that PPB at a light intensity as low as 1.4 Wm-2 were able to treat municipal wastewater with effluent concentrations below above-mentioned target limits. Light intensity (1-50 Wm-2) had no detrimental impact on PPB performance and Monod kinetic parameters. This study showed that the optimized light intensity required for municipal wastewater treatment with PPB is significantly lower than previously indicated in the literature. The energy consumptions attributed to PHB’s illumination of 3, and 1.4 Wm-2 were determined to be 1.44, and 0.67 kWh/m3 which is significantly lower than previous studies (˃ 24 kWh/m3)

A reality check(list) for digital methods

Digital Methods can be defined as the repurposing of the inscriptions generated by digital media for the study of collective phenomena. The strength of these methods comes from their capacity to take advantage of the data and computational capacities of online platforms; their weakness comes from the difficulty to separate the phenomena that they investigate from the features of the media in which they manifest (‘the medium is the message’, according to McLuhan’s 1964 dictum). In this article, we discuss various methodological difficulties deriving from the lack of separation between medium and message and propose eight practical precautions to deal with it