The chapter discusses ancient and modern treatments of Alexander’s death. It describes the omens said to foretell his death and their cultural and historical background, treating ancient versions of what led to Alexander’s death and attempts by historians and scientists to detect the working of poison, conspiracy, or less-violent and sinister causes. The rest of the chapter focuses on Alexander’s so-called last plans, their authenticity, the reasons for their rejection, and the contentious history of his body and burial.

Symbolic tools represent, organize, and transform our knowledge of objects and events. The acquisition and internalization of symbolic tools change the way we think about the world. Different cultural subgroups use different symbolic tools and as a result, they shape their cognitive processes, even those as basic as spatial memory, differently. Moreover, some of the psychological functions that at the first glance should progress developmentally irrespective of the person’s experience actually depend on the acquisition and mastery of specific tools, for example, the graphic representation of objects. Even in societies with formal educational systems, the teaching of symbolic tools as tools is often neglected. Tables, graphs, and formulae appear as a part of the content material instead of being learned as specific tools. Many of the problem-solving mistakes made by students, for example in international exams such as PISA and TIMMS, reflect their poor mastery of symbolic tools rather than a lack of curricular knowledge. Educational interventions aimed at teaching students how to identify and apply the instrumental properties of symbolic tools lead to improved problem-solving in subjects ranging from mathematics to foreign language learning.

Planned actions, as prescribed in protocols and trained in exercises, help frontline responders take action under enormous pressure. Yet, these same actions are often hard, if not impossible, to implement during crises, either because the specific situation was not anticipated and there are no plans in place or because prepared plans do not produce the desired results. As a consequence, frontline responders will need to improvise and adapt their activities to crisis situations. Yet, improvisation under extreme stress is very difficult and may be inefficient or even dangerous to responders. The resulting dilemma for responders is how to choose the right course of action. This requires a view of both action patterns as complementary and even mutually conducive, as most crises will demand a combination of plans and improvisation. Reflective acting helps frontline responders to find the right balance and define adequate response activities.

In this chapter, we begin by looking at ways that you can plan and implement partnership work. Together, we will learn about a range of different approaches that we can use when planning on building relationships. We will examine strategies to determine the appropriate approach and come to an understanding on the importance of co-design in partnerships. This chapter will show you how to draw on the second premise of the TWINE Model of Partnership – to plan – so that you can prepare yourself to start implementating partnership work.

Expectations of Italy were high in London: Rome’s intervention was to be the turning point in the war. Something, however, soon went terribly wrong.

The practice of recognising and rewarding the individual performance of employees is not only becoming more common but also more varied in form. It ranges from the traditional merit-based pay increments to a suite of non-cash reward programs that claim to provide a cheaper and more effective means of rewarding desirable performance and fostering employee satisfaction and engagement. This chapter provides an overview of these practices, starting with merit pay. Merit pay is the most widely applied of the individual performance pay plans, and takes two main forms: merit increments and merit bonuses. We then consider some of the oldest and most enduring of all performance pay plans, results-based individual incentives. Also known as individual ‘payment-by-results’ plans, these include piece rates, task-and-time bonus plans (where employees are rewarded for completing a specified volume of work or a task in less than a ‘standard’ time), sales commissions and bonus payments to individuals for achievement of goals.