Recovering the Common Good: The Key to a truly Prosperous Society?

This article argues that the common good would have much to contribute to political discourse in New Zealand at the present time. Beginning with a definition of the concept, particularly as it has developed within Catholic Social Teaching, the article examines attempts by New Zealand church leaders to introduce it into public debate in recent decades, and concludes that, were the common good to be given serious consideration today, it would both prompt New Zealanders to look critically at their society and consider the purpose of their common life together, and enhance their quality of life individually and communally. The article addresses the charge that promoting the common good might be seen as favouring one (religiously-inspired) notion of 'the good life' over others, and, following Raymond Plant, suggests that, in a pluralist society, a more appropriate starting point for a conversation about such issues would be an exploration of 'social justice'. The article also explores the extent to which markets and governments might promote the common good

Tile Number and Space-Efficient Knot Mosaics

In this paper we introduce the concept of a space-efficient knot mosaic. That is, we seek to determine how to create knot mosaics using the least number of non-blank tiles necessary to depict the knot. This least number is called the tile number of the knot. We determine strict bounds for the tile number of a knot in terms of the mosaic number of the knot. In particular, if $t$ is the tile number of a prime knot with mosaic number $m$, then $5m-8 \leq t \leq m^2-4$ if $m$ is even and $5m-8 \leq t \leq m^2-8$ if $m$ is odd. We also determine the tile number of several knots and provide space-efficient knot mosaics for each of them.Comment: The original version of this article was split into two articles during refereein

Fire Frequency and Time-Since-Fire Effects on the Open-Forest and Woodland Flora of Girraween National Park, South-East Queensland

The effect of recent fire frequency and time-since-fire on plant community composition and species abundance in open-forest and woodland vegetation in Girraween National Park, south-east Queensland, were examined. Cover-abundance data were collected for shrub and vine species in at least ten 400 m2 plots in each of four study areas. Study areas were within one community type and had burnt most recently either four or nine years previously. Variations in fire frequency allowed us to compare areas which had burnt at least three times in the last 25 years with less frequently burnt areas, and also woodlands which experienced a 28-year interfire interval with more frequently burnt areas. While species richness did not differ significantly with either time-since-fire or fire frequency, both these factors affected community composition, fire frequency being the more powerful. Moisture availability also influenced floristics. Of the 67 species found in five or more plots, six were significantly associated with time-since-fire, while 11 showed a significant difference between more and less frequently burnt plots on each of the two fire frequency variables. Most species, however, did not vary in cover-abundance with the fire regime parameters examined. Even those species that showed a marked drop in cover-abundance when exposed to a particular fire regime generally maintained some presence in the community. Six species with the capacity to resprout after fire were considered potentially at risk of local extinction under regimes of frequent fire, while two species were relatively uncommon in long-unburnt areas. Variable fire regimes, which include interfire intervals of at least 15 years, may be necessary for the continuity of all species in the community

A temporal framework of large wildfire suppression in practice, a qualitative descriptive study

Suppression activities on large wildfires are complicated. Existing suppression literature does not take into account this complexity which leaves existing suppression models and measures of resource productivity incomplete. A qualitative descriptive analysis was performed on the suppression activities described in operational documents of 10 large wildfires in Victoria, Australia. A five-stage classification system summarises suppression in the everyday terms ofwildfire management. Suppression can be heterogeneous across different sectors with different stages occurring across sectors on the same day. The stages and the underlying 20 suppression tasks identified provide a fundamental description of how suppression resources are being used on largewildfires. We estimate that at least 57% of resource use on our sample of 10 large wildfires falls outside of current suppression modelling and productivity research