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By examining comparatively two recent projects of university-led large-scale real estate development in South Korea and Singapore, this paper contributes to the ongoing efforts to problematise the methodological statism in the study of East Asian urbanisation, i.e., understanding it as a process dominated by state actors, on the one hand, and to challenge the perspective that university-led real estate projects are a neoliberal strategy as conventionally understood in the West on the other. To this end, this paper uses qualitative research methods to investigate how and why East Asian universities participate in real estate development projects; how the universities pursue their material goals by negotiating with the state, which is known to have led condensed urbanisation and industrialisation in East Asia (Global East). This paper concludes that speculative real estate development activities of East Asian universities are variegated based on their developmental legacies and need to be understood as more nuanced processes. The case studies demonstrate that East Asian universities have worked beyond their social roles by directly participating in the urban process, pursuing the accumulation of real estate assets that would eventually undermine their public role as educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores social stratification and social inequality in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by comprehensively analyzing the effects of occupation on one's class status. In this paper, the author examines the effects that a person's occupational conditions, such as occupation (interpreted narrowly), employment status, type of employment contract (standard or non-standard), and company size, have on his/her individual income and class consciousness, and how these effects vary within East Asian societies on the basis of each society's unique labor market structure and local institutions. The analysis of the 2005 Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM) survey data led to the following findings. On the whole, the effects of occupational conditions on income and class consciousness are similar within all these societies. However, the relative impacts of these conditions differ considerably. While occupation (narrowly interpreted) has predominant effects in Taiwan, the effects of company size and type of employment contract are also considerable in Japan, and partly so in Korea. It is also notable that in the case of Japanese males, company size and type of employment contract have significant effects on class consciousness, even after the effects of individual income are controlled. These effects can be attributed to some factors that are unique to the Japanese management system, such as career-long employment and the wage seniority system that are usually offered to the standard male employees of large companies. From these findings, we can conclude that we should focus on local institutional factors as well as global factors for a better understanding of present-day social stratification and social inequality in East Asian societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines heat-related mortality in the population of South Korea between 1991 and 2005 and examines the extent to which the 1994 heat wave was unusual in terms of mortality impacts and recurrence probability. Most summer heat waves are found to be associated with enhanced mortality. However, the July to August 1994 heat wave was clearly exceptional, with the total death toll exceeding 3000 in South Korea. This value represents net excess mortality, as no displacement effect appeared after the hot summer season. Significantly elevated mortality occurred in all age groups, and an estimated 45 % of victims were persons under 70 yr of age. The relative increase in mortality was larger in children up to 14 yr than in any other age group, and the mortality response was stronger in males than females, although males were less vulnerable during 'average' heat waves. The very large death toll ranks the 1994 heat wave over East Asia as among the worst weather-related disasters in this region. A climatological analysis reveals that the July to August 1994 heat wave might be considered an extremely rare event if temperature time series are assumed to be stationary. However, under a more realistic assumption of gradual warming related to global climate change, the recurrence probability of an event analogous to the 1994 heat wave is sharply rising for near-future time horizons. This emphasizes the need for an efficient heat-watch-warning system in this area, in order to reduce the human mortality impacts of heat waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The track-rich Cretaceous Jindong Formation comprises part of an intra-arc basin, fluvio-lacustrine succession that represents a late stage in the evolution of the Kyongsang Basin. This formation is replete with track-bearing levels indicating the activity of many generations of dinosaurs and birds. The track-rich beds occur in the upper part of the Hayang Group (Kyongsang Supergroup), which also contains other, underlying dinosaur-track-bearing formations. However the Jindong Formation and underlying formations have produced few age-diagnostic body fossils. Altered volcaniclastic sediments such as are found the Jindong Formation complicate interpretation of the age of the tracks as discussed in the accompanying companion paper. Nonetheless such settings provided near optimal conditions for the formation and preservation of abundant track assemblages (ichnofaunas), and the Jindong Formation has become an ichnological “cause celebre” producing impressive statistics on the number of track-bearing sites, number of track-bearing levels and number of measured trackways. These data allow various inferences about certain aspects of the population structure, behavior and distribution of the dinosaurian track makers in these dinosaur-dominated paleocommunities. The Jindong Formation and underlying Haman Formation have also yielded many bird tracks. The complete lack of avian body fossils in Korea and the rarity of dinosaur skeletal remains means that the footprint record currently provides the vast majority of the Mesozoic vertebrate evidence available for the entire Korean peninsula. Thus, the tracks represent a highly significant addition to the national paleontological heritage of Korea, as well as being a very important component of the East Asian and global footprint records. Detailed studies of a 100–200-m-thick succession at the Sangjok Dinosaur Tracksite National Monument in the Hallyo Haesang National Park area in Kosong County reveal an average of about two track-bearing levels per meter, making it one of the richest track-bearing sections on record and providing evidence of the activity of hundreds of individuals. Many other track sites are found locally in the Jindong Formation in Kosong County (about 500km2) including one described herein from near Gohyeon village where the Jindong Formation type section is situated. Other track sites can be traced laterally over larger distances within the Gyeongsang Basin. The composition of ichnofaunas throughout this region appears remarkably consistent. The Jindong Formation is one of the few localities where sauropod, ornithopod, and bird tracks all occur in abundance, probably due to latitudinal/climatic controls. The sauropod tracks, which include wide-gauge forms allied to Brontopodus, form the largest brontosaur trackway sample yet reported but are characterized by a high proportion of small individuals. Such unusual size-frequency distributions raise interesting ecological and taphonomic questions about the biasing of the body fossil record towards large individuals by various physical (preservational) or biological/ ecological controls. The most abundant dinosaur trackways are those of iguanodontids (cf. Caririchnium or Iguanodontipus) that often traveled in herds. By contrast, sauropod tracks show little or no evidence of gregarious behavior and rarely occur on the same bedding planes as ornithopod trackways. This suggests a pattern of mutual exclusion or geological segregation between these two herbivore groups, which indicates that they probably frequented the area at different times. Sauropod and ornithopod track size-frequency distributions are also fundamentally different, suggesting that the ornithopods were mainly sub-adults and adults, whereas the sauropods were predominantly juveniles. Theropod tracks are uncommon suggesting a low predator:prey ratio of 1:20. Bird tracks including the large ichnospecies Jindongornipes kimi, an intermediate-sized form, Goseongornipes markjonesi ichnosp. and ichnogen. nov., and a small ichnospecies Koreanaornis hamanensis occur at several dozen stratigraphic levels in association with nematode trails (Cochlichnus) and other invertebrate traces. These three ichnospecies are assigned to the respective ichnofamilies Koreanornipodidae ichnofam. nov., Ignotornidae, and Jindongornipodidae ichnofam. nov. All these avian footprints are typical of bird track assemblages in lake shoreline deposits, and indicate the activity of many generations of waders or shorebirds. We also recognize other, much less common, small footprint types tentatively attributed to a perching bird or a diminutive theropod. Collectively the bird tracks indicate the considerable potential of avian ichnites to provide insight into avian paleoecology at an early stage in the evolution of Class Aves. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]