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Summary: "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie is a psychological mystery novel that revolves around ten strangers invited to a secluded island under various pretenses. Upon arrival, they are accused of past crimes and begin to die one by one, following the lines of a disturbing nursery rhyme. With no way to escape the island and no apparent murderer among them, paranoia and fear take hold. As the group diminishes, the survivors realize that the killer is one of them, but each murder is carried out in such a way that it seems impossible for any of them to be responsible. In the end, it's revealed that the mastermind behind the killings had a twisted sense of justice, punishing each person for crimes they thought they had gotten away with. This novel is one of Christie's most popular works, known for its suspenseful plot, atmosphere of dread, and unexpected twist ending.

Summary: "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie is a famous mystery novel featuring the renowned detective, Hercule Poirot. The story is set aboard the luxurious Orient Express train traveling from Istanbul to Calais. During the journey, a wealthy American passenger, Samuel Ratchett, is murdered in his compartment. Poirot is asked to investigate the case and soon discovers that nearly every passenger has a potential motive for the murder. As Poirot interviews each of the passengers and gathers clues, he uncovers a complex web of deceit. The investigation reveals that Ratchett was actually a gangster named Cassetti, responsible for the kidnapping and murder of a child years earlier. In a shocking twist, Poirot concludes that all the passengers conspired together to kill Ratchett, as each had a personal connection to the murdered child. The novel is famous for its intricate plot and surprising resolution, making it one of Christie's most beloved works. It explores themes of justice, revenge, and morality.

Network forensics involves the capture, recording, and analysis of network events in order to discover the source of security attacks and other problem incidents. We extend our previously proposed model for collecting network data, identifying suspicious packets, examining protocol features misused and correlating attack attributes. This model is capable of handling attacks on the TCP/IP suite. The results obtained by this model are validated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper includes data of experimental investigations of drinking water decontamination in the plasm-chemical reactor; optimal conditions of the process are determined; distinctive features of activation processes occurring as a result of contact action of low-temperature non-equilibrium plasma are shown. The most efficient fields of application of the above technology in conditions of emergency situations and terrorist threats are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critique of the World Trade Center investigation with respect to the cause of the collapse of towers 1 and 2 is presented. The official investigation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded that the collapse was due to the fires heating the core columns that were stripped of insulation by the aircraft impacts. An alternative cause is considered that puts the cause on insufficient insulation of the steel truss floor members. Evidence for the latter is supported by NIST analysis of a truss member, Underwriter Laboratory furnace tests of the floor assembly, and engineering calculations and scale model tests conducted at the University of Maryland. The presentation is couched in terms of 10 questions for NIST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the methodology of investigation of influence of grinding regimes on surface layer tension state. The mathematical model of creating the final tension in part, based on full factorial experiment is described. The main values of factors are chosen close to practical regimes of grinding for a given materials and intervals for factors changes are calculated from the real process conditions. The estimated parameters and their accuracy are verified by means of Student and Fisher statistical criterion. As the result of investigation is determined that the final stresses of surface after grinding depends mainly on feed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter examines Vygotsky's method of double stimulation as a basis for formative interventions in the workplace. I argue that double stimulation is radically different from such intervention approaches as the design experiments currently discussed in educational research. Double stimulation is, above all, aimed at eliciting new, expansive forms of agency in subjects. In other words, double stimulation is focused on making subjects masters of their own lives. First, I will present Vygotsky's double stimulation as a theoretical and methodological idea. I will then examine recent notions of “design experiments” and point out some serious limitations in these experiments. Second, I will introduce the Change Laboratory method developed in the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research and used for ten years in formative interventions in workplaces. Third, I will discuss this method as an application and expansion of double stimulation. Fourth, I will demonstrate the practical implementation of Change Laboratory with an example from a project carried out in Finnish post offices. Fifth, I will conclude the chapter with a discussion of some methodological and theoretical implications of the Change Laboratory method for further development of Vygotskian research, especially as it is applied in the context of the workplace and organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These two scholars were more than a little acquainted: Vygotsky was Shpet's student at the Shanyavsky People's University, and he attended Shpet's seminar for two years. At the beginning of the 1920s, Vygotsky started to work at the psychological institute where, as Aleksei N. Leont'ev has noted, Shpet was the most famous professor. At the end of the 1920s, Shpet and Vygotsky both taught at the Pedology Department of the Second Moscow University. Despite all these connections, there is only one reference to Shpet in Vygotsky's works (in The Psychology of Art), and even this is only in passing. And Shpet's books Phenomenon and Meaning (1914), Aesthetic Fragments (1922), and The Inner Form of Word (1927), in which he discussed thinking and language, thought and word, meaning and sense, and external and inner forms of a word were all published significantly earlier than Vygotsky's Thinking and Speech (1934). Today, it is hard to guess why Vygotsky and his whole scientific school (Aleksandr R. Luria, A. N. Leont'ev, Aleksandr V. Zaporozhets, and others) ignored Shpet's works. It could have been fear or caution born out of Shpet's style of behavior and writing. This style was characterized by freedom and dignity and the independence of his thought from Marxist-Leninist ideology,which at the time was growing stronger and stronger. The Bolsheviks felt this independence, dismissed Shpet several times from his academic positions, and, in the end, arrested and shot him in 1937. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, I will discuss the pedagogic implications of some aspects of Vygotsky's writing. I will draw heavily on his own words and seek to develop two major strands in the range of possible interpretations of his work. The central tension that I wish to explore is between those accounts that emphasize the analysis of the content of instruction as against those which are more concerned with forms of pedagogic interaction and participation. Arguably, many of the differences in emphasis and priority that have arisen reflect differences in what are, ultimately, political preferences. Vygotsky was well aware of the extent to which pedagogic practice is subject to social, cultural, and political influence. “ Pedagogics is never and was never politically indifferent, since, willingly or unwillingly, through its own work on the psyche, it has always adopted a particular social pattern, political line, in accordance with the dominant social class that has guided its interests.” (Vygotsky, 1997b, p. 348) / Vygotsky was suggesting a process of social formation in the formation of educational ideas. He distances himself from the naturalistic or common sense pedagogic positions that pervade so much political debate, particularly when the term back to basics is invoked. For him pedagogies arise and are shaped in particular social circumstances. Ironically, the text Pedagogical Psychology from which the above quote is drawn, was considered to be so politically unacceptable to the rulers of the Soviet state that one had to have a special pass from the KGB that would admit one to the restricted reading room in the Lenin Library where the book could be read (Davydov, 1993). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vygotsky's ideas about culture are of special interest because he attributed such an essential role to culture in human psychological processes. However, any attempt to provide an adequate account of his ideas about culture and human nature faces formidable obstacles. To begin with, the term “culture” is virtually absent from the indexes of his published works. When we delve deeper into his texts, we find culture appearing in three distinctive forms. First, culture defined as artistic products and the processes of creation, appears in such works as The Psychology of Art, as part of Vygotsky's long-standing interest in literary and cultural criticism. This early involvement of culture in Vygotsky's writings (which engaged him in debates with Russian formalists) appears later in his extensive use of literary examples to illustrate the operation of important psychological functions. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and several Russian poets provide important material for his arguments in Thinking and Speech. Second, when we turn to Vygotsky's better-known works on the development of higher psychological functions, culture appears in two related forms. We find it appearing in terms such as “cultural-historical” and “cultural development,” which apply to the way in which the mediation of action through culture is a defining property of human psychological functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediation is a theme that runs throughout the writings of Lev Semënovich Vygotsky. In his view, a hallmark of human consciousness is that it is associated with the use of tools, especially “psychological tools” or “signs.” Instead of acting in a direct, unmediated way in the social and physical world, our contact with the world is indirect or mediated by signs. This means that understanding the emergence and the definition of higher mental processes must be grounded in the notion of mediation. Mediation also provides the foundation for another of Vygotsky's theoretical goals, namely, building a link between social and historical processes, on the one hand, and individuals' mental processes, on the other. It is because humans internalize forms of mediation provided by particular cultural, historical, and institutional forces that their mental functioning sociohistorically situated. The importance that Vygotsky attached to mediation is reflected in a lecture he delivered near the end of his life, where he asserted, “A central fact of our psychology is the fact of mediation [oposredovanie]” (Vygotsky, 1982, p. 166). But this is an issue that concerned him from the beginning of his career onward. In a 1930 report on “The Instrumental Method in Psychology,” for example, he focused on the importance of signs as “artificial formations . . . [that] are social, not organic or individual” (Vygotsky, 1981, p. 137) and he included under this heading: “language; various systems for counting; mnemonic techniques; algebraic symbol systems; works of art; writing; schemes, diagrams, maps, and mechanical drawings; all sorts of conventional signs” (Vygotsky, 1981, p. 137). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter examines the philosophical dimensions of Vygotsky's legacy. Vygotsky was a profoundly original thinker, but he was not one whose independence of thought caused him to neglect the ideas of others. On the contrary, Vygotsky was exceptionally well-read. He had an impressive command of the European psychological literature and considerable knowledge of adjacent fields, such as anthropology and educational theory. His appreciation of literature and literary theory is well-known and justly celebrated. Less often remarked upon, however, is his debt to philosophy. In this field, too, he was well-versed, having majored in philosophy and history at the Shanyavsky People's University. Vygotsky was much influenced by the philosophical vision of Marx and Engels: Almost all of the many references to their writings in Vygotsky's Collected Works are to philosophical themes. He was also inspired by a number of philosophers who had influenced Marx and Engels, notably Hegel (whom Vygotsky had read in high school), Spinoza, and Feuerbach. Marxism and its antecedents, however, by no means exhaust Vygotsky's philosophical interests. He cites numerous other philosophers, including Aristotle, Bergson, Brentano, Descartes, Dewey, Dilthey, Fichte, Hobbes, Husserl, James, Kant, Lichtenberg, Malebranche, Nietzsche, Neurath, Plato, and Scheler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a fundamental tenet of Vygotskian theory that in order to understand the inner mental processes of human beings, we must look at human beings in their sociocultural context. We should not look for the explanation of human behavior in the depths of the brain or the soul but in the external living conditions of persons and, most of all, in the external conditions of their societal life - in their social-historical forms of existence (Luria, 1979, p. 23). By accepting this tenet and generalizing it to the understanding of the creative work of investigators, we might say that in order to more fully understand the work of a specific thinker, we should step outside of that thinker's mind and take a look at the broader socioeconomic and sociocultural background in which he or she worked. The researcher's private abilities and preferences undoubtedly play a role in the creation of major theories, but the shaping of character, inclinations, and abilities of the researcher takes place in a specific sociocultural context, and every scientist is dependent on the ideas and tools available in his or her time. There is no true understanding of an investigator's theories, then, without an assessment of the broad context in which the theories were created (cf. Van der Veer, 1997). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]