The research task of the essay is to answer the question of what is the face of the nation in the ethnic enclaves situated at the peripheries of national states. The subject of the analyses is the local population of the village Jaworzynka. In 1922, the settlement Herczawa was founded as a local unit independent from Jaworzynka. Since then Herczawa began to belong to Czechoslovakia. The state-owned status of Jaworzynka, which started to be a part of the Republic of Poland, was recognized after the World War I. The author takes into account the longue durre of folk and national culture generated in the Silesian Beskidy in the second half of the 18th century. The national culture is the main term applied to the investigations of the borderland regions. According to the ethno-symbolic approaches (Anthony D. Smith) and culturalism methods in sociology (Antonina Kłoskowska), the author analyses in his research: 1) language, 2) religion, 3) folkways and mores 4) arts, 5) local knowledge and literature. These elements delineate the sphere of symbolic culture. Based on the common folk culture, two national cultures have been formed nowadays – the Polish and Czech ones. Both Polish and Czech Census Bureau data and objective elements of national culture discussed in the essay indicate the process of national revival. The local people of Jaworzynka identify themselves as Poles and the population of Herczawa define themselves as Czechs. The content and the form of the local culture are visible in Jaworzyna, but they seem to be latent or diminishing in Herczawa.

The issues of medical robots have been approached for 12 years in the Institute of Machine Tools and Production Engineering of the Technical University of Lodz. In the last two years, the scope of research related to the miniaturization of surgical tools, automated changing of these tools with the use of a tool depot designed for this purpose, equipping the robot in the sense of touch and developing the software which provides ergonomic and intuitive robot control with the use of all its functions. In the telemanipulator control, strong emphasis is placed on the intuitiveness of control, which is hard to be ensured due to the fact that the robot tool is observed by a laparoscopic camera, whose orientation and position may vary. That is the reason for developing a new algorithm. It copies the increments of the position and orientation measured in relation to the monitor coordinate system onto the robot tool movement and orientation, which are measured in relation to the camera coordinates system. In this algorithm it is necessary to solve inverse kinematics, which has a discontinuity. Avoiding the discontinuity is achieved by mapping the solution with the cosine function. It causes smooth pass through the area of discontinuity in this way avoiding the singularity.