The proficiency in vernacular has long been a methodological ethos pervasive among field researchers and—despite new dynamics of fieldwork—still overshadows discussions related to collaboration with translators and interpreters, which are either marginalized or hidden within the category of a ‘research assistant’. The purpose of this study is to take a step beyond anecdotal evidence and explore trends in language proficiency and use of translation services among US based field researchers who had conducted international or domestic studies in an area where a language other than English was present. We conducted the largest-to-date survey on the subject and analyzed 913 responses from faculty at sociology and anthropology programs in the United States. We documented their global fieldwork activity and found only limited proficiency in field languages accompanied by a proliferation of reliance on translators and interpreters, not matching any methodological discussion present in the textbooks and other scholarly sources. We indicate disparities in the use of vernacular and translation services in the post-colonial societies and point out related ethical and methodological concerns. Furthermore, we analyze the researchers’ decision-making processes and their general perspectives on the importance of vernacular’s knowledge and opinions on the admissibility of translators in the fieldwork.

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Low-cost sensors have been used considerably to characterize air pollution in the last few years. This study involves the usage of this technology for the first time to assess PM2.5 pollution at four cities on the U.S.–Mexico border. These cities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley Region of South Texas are Brownsville, Edinburg, Weslaco, and Port Isabel. A year-long sampling campaign was undertaken from 1 March 2021 to 31 March 2022. TSI BlueSky™ Air Quality Monitors were deployed concurrently at 11 different locations in these four cities. Twenty-four-hour PM2.5 concentrations from these sensors were then compared with ambient PM2.5 data available at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Continuous Ambient Monitoring Station (CAMS) sites to elucidate spatial and temporal variability in the pollutant concentrations at the neighborhood level. The results indicate low to moderate spatial heterogeneity in the PM2.5 concentrations throughout the region. Our findings suggest that low-cost sensors in combination with CAMS sites have the potential to aid community monitoring for real-time spatiotemporal PM2.5 pollution patterns.

With advances in technological sciences, individuals can utilize low-cost air monitoring sensors to record air quality at homes, schools, and businesses. Air quality data collected from LCSs are publicly accessible, informing the community of the air quality around them. It is important to measure local and regional particulate matter (PM) concentrations to keep the public involved, especially those with specific health concerns, such as asthma, wheezing, and seasonal allergies. The number of studies involving the use of LCSs to evaluate PM levels is increasing with more manufacturers producing ‘easy to use’ LCSs targeting the public. The goal of this review is to understand and incorporate the findings from studies using LCSs to analyze PM of various sizes, i.e., PM1, PM2.5, PM4, and PM10. This review integrates analyses from 51 different studies in 14 countries, including the U.S. The findings indicate spatial heterogeneity in the PM concentrations across a region. Some of the low-cost sensor manufacturers mentioned in these studies include Plantower, AQMesh, Alpha-sense, PurpleAir, E-MOTEs, and Shinyei. This review emphasizes the importance of LCSs in the field of PM monitoring and its potential to inform the public about their exposure burden, and to aid state and federal decision makers in formulating policies for mitigating the effects of PM pollution in any urban or rural setting.

The increasing popularity of audiovisual translation in recent years has contributed to a better understanding of the audiovisual world. Nevertheless, some modalities such as voice-over have not received thorough attention. In Poland, where voice-over is the prevailing audiovisual, one voice talent reads out the entire dialogue list in a monotonous way. The translated version is subject to time and space restrictions, and both the original and the translated soundtracks are audible at the same time, making it interesting to analyze a key aspect of voice-over: the process of synchronization. Departing from a categorization which originated within the field of dubbing, and which was later extended and applied to the voice-over of non-fictional products by Franco, Matamala and Orero, this article aims to assess whether voice-over isochrony, literal synchrony, kinetic synchrony and action synchrony are maintained in the voice-over of fiction genres in Poland, and if so, what strategies are used to achieve this. The corpus is made up of four 15-minutes samples from movies belonging to four different genres: a comedy (Whatever Works, directed by Woody Allen 2009), a drama (Marvin’s Room, directed by Jerry Zaks 1996), an action movie (Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott 2001), and a musical (Nine, directed by Rob Marshall 2009). The study highlights the specificities of synchrony in fictional movies and opens the door for future research into this previously underestimated audiovisual transfer mode.