Modelling mammalian energetics: the heterothermy problem

Global climate change is expected to have strong effects on the world’s flora and fauna. As a result, there has been a recent increase in the number of meta-analyses and mechanistic models that attempt to predict potential responses of mammals to changing climates. Many models that seek to explain the effects of environmental temperatures on mammalian energetics and survival assume a constant body temperature. However, despite generally being regarded as strict homeotherms, mammals demonstrate a large degree of daily variability in body temperature, as well as the ability to reduce metabolic costs either by entering torpor, or by increasing body temperatures at high ambient temperatures. Often, changes in body temperature variability are unpredictable, and happen in response to immediate changes in resource abundance or temperature. In this review we provide an overview of variability and unpredictability found in body temperatures of extant mammals, identify potential blind spots in the current literature, and discuss options for incorporating variability into predictive mechanistic models

Using artistic form for aesthetic organizational inquiry:Rimini Protokoll constructs Daimler's Annual General Meeting as a theatre play

This paper reviews and analyses an artistic intervention in the context of aesthetic organizational inquiry and theatre in organizations. Having served as inspiration and as a tool within organizations, theatre now has returned the favour: Rimini Protokoll, a group of directors, used Daimler's 2009 Annual General Meeting in Berlin as a ready-made and constructed it as a theatre play entitled Hauptversammlung. Two hundred theatre spectators were channelled into the event via the purchase of shares. This study focuses on the aesthetic experience of the event and underlines the potential of artistic forms for aesthetic organizational inquiry. Implications suggest that a so-called postdramatic, nonlinear aesthetic form can be most promising for enabling critical interpretations of organizational issues