This novel study explores the driving forces and dynamics of rapid urbanization, highlighting the main causes and effects of urban explosion, environmental disruption, and city pattern transformation. This study was carried out that how urbanization and urban sprawl have influenced the structure of the city of Sulaymaniah in Kurdistan region of Iraq. This is because over the years many urban areas have experienced dramatic growth and population explosion that has resulted in the exhaustion of social amenities in the concerned communities. For this purpose, a qualitative method is used based on in-depth face-to-face interviews with local authority, including planners, architects, and experts of master planning, as well as professors in the academic institutions. This study also utilizes extensive document analysis to present the evolution of urban growth. The findings reveal that the autonomy, political conflict, non-implementation of master plans, and economic prosperity are the driving forces which are accelerating this urbanization process. It is proposed that the practical policies and strategic urban development plans are urgent requirement to control the unplanned urban growth and stimulate the desired sustainable future urban development.

This experimental study of consecutive interpreting investigates whether: (1) there is any correlation between assessments of its fluency and accuracy; (2) judged fluency can be predicted from computer-based measurements like articulation rate. Ten raters judged six criteria of accuracy and fluency in two consecutive interpretations of the same recorded source speech, from Chinese A into English B, by 12 trainee interpreters (seven undergraduates, five MA students). The recorded interpretations were examined with the speech analysis tool PRAAT. From a computerized count of the pauses thus detected, together with disfluencies identified by raters, 12 acoustic measures of fluency were calculated. The advanced students were more fluent than the beginners; both groups were less fluent in the initial interpretation. Statistical analysis shows: (1) a strong positive correlation between judged accuracy and judged fluency; (2) strong correlations between judged fluency and objective fluency variables; (3) the usefulness of effective speech rate (number of syllables, excluding disfluencies, divided by total duration of speech production and pauses) as a predictor of judged fluency. Other important determinants of judged fluency were the number of filled pauses, articulation rate, and mean length of pause. Potential for developing automatic fluency assessment in consecutive interpreting is discussed, as are possible training implications.

The present study investigates whether immediate repetition improves consecutive interpreting performance during training. In addition, the study tries to shed light on whether the effects of immediate repetition differ between BA and MA interpreting trainees. In the experiment, ten raters judged six major quality measures of the accuracy and fluency of the interpreting output recorded from seven BA trainees and five MA trainees. The seventh quality measure expressed linguistic complexity as the number of clauses per AS-unit. The results show that the main effects of repetition and proficiency are both significant on accuracy and fluency, but the main effects are absent on linguistic complexity. Moreover, in terms of fluency BA trainees benefit significantly more from repetition than MA trainees. Accuracy improvement through repetition does not differ significantly between the two groups. The results have implications for consecutive interpreting training at different stages.

Discriminative reaction times to auditory stimuli were measured for 150 students of the local Chinese population. Pearson's correlation with scores on the Standard Progressive Matrices and RTs was negative, becoming -0.30 when slower trials were eliminated. The possible basis for improvement was discussed in relation to cognitive processes and the general theory of assessing intelligence.

This chapter presents an experimental study of consecutive interpreting which investigates whether: (1) judged fluency can be predicted from computer-based quantitative prosodic measures including temporal measures and melodic measures. Ten raters judged six criteria of accuracy and fluency in two consecutive interpretations of the same recorded source speech, from Chinese 'A' into English 'B', by 12 trainee interpreters (seven undergraduates, five MA students). The recorded interpretations were examined with the speech analysis tool PRAAT. From a computerized count of the pauses thus detected, together with disfluencies identified by raters, 12 temporal measures of fluency were calculated. In addition, two melodic measures, i.e. pitch level and pitch range were automatically generated. These two measures are often considered to be associated with speaking confidence and competence. Statistical analysis shows: (1) strong correlations between judged fluency and temporal variables of fluency; (2) no correlation between pitch range and judged fluency, but a moderate (negative) correlation between pitch level and judged fluency; and(3) the usefulness of effective speech rate (number of syllables, excluding disfluencies, divided by total duration of speech production and pauses) as a predictor of judged fluency. Other important determinants of judged fluency were the number of filled pauses, articulation rate, and mean length of pause. Potential for developing automatic fluency assessment in consecutive interpreting is discussed, as are implications for informing the design of rubrics of fluency assessment and facilitating formative assessment in interpreting education.