Temperature is a prominent abiotic environmental variable that drives the adaptive trajectories of animal lineages and structures the composition of animal communities. Global temperature regimes are expected to undergo rapid shifts in the next century, yet for many animal taxa we lack an understanding of the consequences of these predicted shifts for animal populations. In this review, we synthesize recent evidence that temperature variation shapes the composition and function of animal gut microbiomes, key regulators of host physiology, with potential consequences for host population responses to climate change. Several recent studies spanning a range of animal taxa, including Chordata, Arthropoda, and Mollusca, have reported repeatable associations between temperature and the community composition and function of the gut microbiome. In several cases, the same microbiome responses to temperature have been observed across distantly related animal taxa, suggesting the existence of conserved mechanisms underlying temperature-induced microbiome plasticity. Extreme temperatures can disrupt the stability of alpha-diversity within the gut microbiomes individual hosts and generate beta-diversity among microbiomes within host populations. Microbiome states resulting from extreme temperatures have been associated, and in some cases causally linked, with both beneficial and deleterious effects on host phenotypes. We propose routes by which temperature-induced changes in the gut microbiome may impact host fitness, including effects on colonization resistance in the gut, on host energy and nutrient assimilation, and on host life history traits. Cumulatively, available data indicate that disruption of the gut microbiome may be a mechanism by which changing temperatures will impact animal fitness in wild-living populations.

This article presents an intelligent system for container stacking based on fuzzy logic. The method establishes a defined criterion for accepting or rejecting in real time an entry request to the stacking areas of the port in Valparaiso, Chile. A case study based on expert knowledge illustrates the proposed method with real data. First, the optimum solution is determined for a problem of maximization of entries, based on historical records from the traffic and information center of Valparaiso Port. Second, this solution is used to establish a strategy for making “the best possible decisions.” The combination of the optimization and the fuzzy results (which consider the type of cargo, prices, and capacity) is performed at two levels. First, the optimization results are used as feed for the fuzzy system to determinate a ratio of future acceptances. Second, the optimization results are compared to the fuzzy system results in order to estimate a parameter to establish the minimal percentage value for accepting a request. As a result, a proper use of the stacking area is achieved, which results in an increase of profits and revenue management.

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Five years ago I sat in the audience and listened to National Civic League chair John Gardner challenge us-those of us who spent our lives trying to build community-to join a national movement of American renewal. John' s vision put in words what many of us were trying to create: a world that embraces diversity, seeks common ground with unlikely partners, focuses on tapping the talents and experiences of all people, and tackles tough community problems and a world built on the strength of our neighborhoods and communities. Most important, these collective actions were helping us build and strengthen relationships that we could then turn to for the ongoing set of challenges we faced locally.With the National Civic League turning one hundred years old, John inspired us to focus on the promise and hope of the work we were doing at home, in our neighborhoods all across the country, instead of giving in to the rising tide of cynicism and hopelessness that seemed to be our constant companion.At the time, I was helping the Rockefeller Foundation put together the Common Enterprise, a new community-building initiative. We had spent the previous two years examining what was working across the country in many different fields-community building, community organizing, leadership development, politics, journalism, facilitation, government, the private sector, foundations, youth work-and seeing what we could learn across these areas. Simultaneously we were holding conversations with a wide range of residents in the cities we had targeted. These conversations included the involved, committed individuals who were making a difference but were not widely known.