The paper examines the spatial patterning of the three major causes of mortality in Kuwait. Since the population of Kuwait is composed of two well-identified communities: Kuwaitis and non-Kuwaitis, the distribution of deaths will be affected by different social, economic and demographic characteristics of both groups.
Mortality rates are calculated per 100, 000 of the total population according to the international classification of death causes. The major groups of mortality causes are: neoplasms, diseases of the circulatory system, and accidents and injuries, which are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the total deaths in Kuwait. Of all the causes, diseases of the circulatory system cause the highest rate of death. Accidents and injuries come second, followed by neoplasms.
Mortality rates from all causes are higher among Kuwaitis than among non-Kuwaitis. Rates are also higher in most cases among males of both communities than females. The highest figures of mortality, however, are those recorded in the Capital governorate including the township of Kuwait, and Jahra governorate, which is densely populated by foreign immigrants. Immigrants tend to suffer from accidents and injuries.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the importance of slash-and-burn fields in the development of agricultural land in Japan. Slash-and-burn cultivation was a common and important land use pattern in mountainous areas throughout Japan until the Second World War. It has been explained in previous studies that slash-and-burn fields decreased with the passage of time, but the present study shows the opposite. That is to say, slash-and-burn fields in fact increased from the early Tokugawa period (the 17th century) to the late Meiji period (the late 19th century). Only after the late Meiji period did they begin to decrease, becoming extinct in a fairly short time.
The main location of slash-and-burn fields changed from near residential sections to land farther away, and from gentler slopes to steeper slopes. When changes in agricultural land use took place, almost all the slash-and-burn fields were turned into forest, dry fields or wasteland, not into paddy fields.
As for the cultivators of slash-and-burn fields, it has been said that while the large-scale land owners engaged in cultivating paddy fields and dry fields, it was small-scale land owners or the “serf” peasants who engaged in slash-and-burn cultivation. The author, however, wants to point out that both land owners and “serf” peasants were engaged in cultivating slash-and-burn fields. Every peasant had slash-and-burn fields at several different places, and when the burning season came, those who had slash-and-burn fields next to each other worked together. There were also many village-owned slash-and-burn fields in those days. The typical differentiation of social strata among peasants which appeared in paddy field villages, was not found in the slash-and-burn field villages.

View full abstract

In the atrio of Mt. Usu, Hokkaido, Japan which was severely devastated by the 1977-1978 eruptions, we examined natural plant recovery and erosional and depositional patterns during the period 1977-1984 on the basis of field examination and aerial photo interpretation. Plant recovery processes, survival and invasion (disseminule origin), dynamically interacted with geomorphic processes. The strategy of survival contributed to a great extent to plant recovery. Tree basal remnants and buried. branches sent new shoots in zones of lesser burial. Underground storage organs of numerous herbaceous plants easily perforated thicker deposits than the woody plants and therefore survived in a wider area. Survival and invasion of herbaceous plants in erosional rills and gullies were a common feature of hillslopes that were thickly covered with tephra. Pioneer trees issued from light anemochorous seeds first invaded rapidly inactivated alluvial fans which were characteristically covered with ash and pumice. Herbaceous plants also invaded preferentially on the pumiceous substratum than on the ash field. Rilling and gullying, though sometimes destructive, played an important role in transporting organic debris and seeds with hard coats from upper somma walls to lower slopes and alluvial fans. Plants (pioneer trees and herbs) established on alluvial fans were largely dependent on inactivation of geomorphic processes. Surface erosion rate had already declined before the plants had started to recover, implying little protective role of plant recovery on erosion; deceleration of geomorphic activity had a positive influence on plant recovery. In summary, plant recovery largely depended on combined effects of direct eruptive damage, especially tephra thickness, and post-eruption erosion and deposition processes.

View full abstract

A variety of Japanese urban maps and atlases illustrate some interesting characteristics deep-rooted in the soil of Japan. The latest years of the Tokugawa feudal period saw a great many urban picture maps designed as guide maps for Edo's population of well over one million and many other travellers. The then artistic but inaccurate maps had to be revised in the modern age after the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Western techniques were widely introduced, and during the course of modern history, sizable amendments were made so as to depict things Japanese well on maps.
Today, the Geographical Survey Institute (GSI) is functioning as by far the most influential agent for making scientific, systematic and accurate basic maps in cooperation with local governments, other central government agencies, and private companies. GSI now publishes a 1:10, 000 topographical map series for major urban areas. Local governments print 1:2, 500 or 1:1, 000 national large-scale maps primarily designed for urbanized areas under the guidance of GSI. For urban built-up areas, cadastral mapping at larger scales is very slowly being made due to the geographical complexity of urban areas. To meet demands for much more detailed, updated town information, several private companies publish urban maps and atlases at 1:1, 000-1:2, 000 including house atlases which cover all Japanese cities. These are of great practical use. Shopping and leisure town guide maps are also popular among young people. Historical urban atlases for such a city as Tokyo seem to attract specialists and the older generations, as well as culture-oriented younger people and foreigners, as a reminiscence of the past, which is not easily visible in this largest urban agglomeration in the world.

View full abstract