Need help with meaning of the words in the following sentences

Question

Part A.The attacks on ambition are many and come from various angles; its public defenders are few and unimpressive, where they are not extremely unattractive.

What's the p.o.s of "where"? Is it a conjunction?

Part B.In addition, far more Japanese workers expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs than did their counterparts in the 10 other countries surveyed.

I don't understand the usage of "did" in these sentence, is it a emphatic sentence or a inverted one?

Part C.Urban Japanese have long endured lengthy commutes(travels to and from work) and crowed living conditions.

Why use travels instead of travel?

Answer 1

For part A. I think "where" is just used essentially with the same meaning as "in those cases". I must admit I'm not sure what p.o.s. it is, though my guess would be pronoun.

For part B. The reason 'did' is there is so the sentence has the right meaning. It is used as a stand in for "was expressed by ..." without "did" you would have:

In addition, far more Japanese workers expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs than their counterparts in the 10 other countries surveyed.

Which would tend to mean the Japanese workers were more dissatisfied with their jobs than with their counterparts.

For part C. As has been already pointed out in comments "travels" here is just a noun explaining what a commute is. According to M-W travel actually exists as a noun though it seems slightly weird to me in the singular as a noun. It is quite widely used as a noun in the plural though.