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The subject-matter of sacral cultural heritage and sites, traditionally the subject of theological research and concerns, has lately become also the focus of anthropological and sociological analyses. The contributions of these three disciplines to the study of this problematic certainly can and should be usefully integrated into similar future inter-disciplinary initiatives focused on the safeguarding of sacral heritage. Approaches, perspectives and conclusions in the treatment of sacral cultural heritage in these disciplines have varied and provoked some sustained and enduring debates. The article intends to summarize the main trends and state of research on the problematic and discuss the latest legal and expert initiatives and documents produced and elaborated in the quest to identify and apply new instruments, strategies and policies to secure the protection of sacral cultural heritage.
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The present research has two objectives: first, to study the short-term and the long-term economic growth of Bulgaria under a currency board arrangement and second, to identify the main sources of this growth on the demand-side and on the supply-side of the economy. The empirical research on Bulgaria’s economic growth during the transition to a market-oriented economy has been systematized. The dynamics of the final-expenditure-structure of GDP as a determinant of short-run economic growth on the demand-side of the economy has been analyzed. The trends in the movements of the long-run factors of growth (saving rate, rate of productivity growth, rate of population growth, employment and investment) have been investigated. The growth accounting techniques has been employed to identify the main growth determinants on the supply-side of the economy and to measure quantitatively their contributions to the growth of real GDP. Advisable macroeconomic policies to overcome the heavy growth problems of the Bulgarian economy have been formulated.
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This paper addresses an important issue in the context of the value-based financial management of companies. It concerns the analysis and appraisal of the growth, pursued by management, with regard to its contribution to the value maximization of the firm. The determinants of the value of growth are analyzed. The study indicates that the policy of aggressive growth, applied by many companies, does not always lead to the actual increase of their value. This depends on the quality of growth achieved by them.
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This article looks at the possibilities of proportional and progressive income tax in Bulgaria, as factors for the formation of economic growth. The empirical study found proportional relationship between progressive taxation and economic growth. Inversely proportional relationship has been registered between the dynamics of growth and the proportional taxation. The results show the presence of synchronicity between progressive income taxation and collection. There have been established evidences for presence of causality.
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Is considered the increase in global debt and its four main components – liabilities of households, companies, financial institutions and governments. More specifically is analyzed the dynamic of sovereign debt in many developed and developing countries. Based on the experience of the last 200 years when are registered 5 huge waves of mass non-payments of public debt (external and internal), is outlined the risk of adverse developments in the debt situation in the world. Below are possible strategies to reduce the public debt burden. It’s concluded that a possible second wave of the global financial crisis will most likely be triggered by large increases in government debt around the world.
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The article briefly presents the concept and framework of regional integration in Africa. It then discusses the principles, history, and current state of negotiations to disclose the effects of EPAs on regional integration efforts in Africa. Then it analyses the trends in international trade relations between the EU and the five EPA regions in Africa for the period 2003-2013, aiming to assess if EPAs have the envisaged positive impact on trade for both the EU, the EPA regions and the participating countries. The analysis includes the direction, dynamics and commodity structure of EU trade with African EPA regions. As a conclusion, the paper presents some general questions posed by the analysis on the future development of EPAs and the trade policy of the EU towards Sub-Saharan African countries.
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The article treats the incorrect in terms of methodology use of artworks as a ‘credible source’ for reconstructing architectural sites in ruins. Medieval representations from Veliko Tyrnovo treated in scientific publications form the first group. Enough arguments have been adduced pertaining to their specificity of typologizing images following particular iconographic patterns. Hence the second group is accentuated, containing drawings and engravings by West-European artists of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries with regard to Philippopolis (Plovdiv), Kyustendil and Sozopol. Significant discrepancies are witnessed showing that these artworks wouldn’t also evince strict topographic descriptions. Furthermore, western artists have inevitably reproduced any situation premising on their experience got from their own environments, perception, knowledge, etc., i.e. foreign cultural stereotypes underlie these works. An artwork is in itself a reflection depending on historical, cultural, and individual factors. Using such a category of pictorial material in gathering information about the respective sites, might lead to replacing direct by indirect evidence and an ensuing series of interrelated assumptions. Against a backdrop of the recent massive construction and reconstruction works carried out on Bulgaria’s heritage sites, individual instances are dealt with of ignoring the original artefacts, which results anew in creating fakes thus irreversibly damaging the authenticity of cultural values.
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A project of the same title on the preservation and conservation of the medieval Church of St John Aliturgеtos, Nessebar implemented currently by a team of the Bulgarian National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, briefly BNC of ICOMOS, underlies this article. The study, seeking to find, systematise and present the available mostly in the publications until the mid-twentieth century textual, graphical and photographic information, comprises above all the explorations of arch. Alexander Rashenov; Peter Mutafchiev; Max Zimmerman; G. Balş and Nicolae Ghika-Budeşti; of the unknown until the 1960s arch. Petr P. Pokryshkin; the Škorpil brothers, Karel and Hermenegild; Konstantin Jireček and Felix Kanitz. Prior to Felix Kanitz’s visit in 1872, the church was explored by the Frenchmen Xavier Hommaire de Hell and Jules Laurеnes, who visited the town in 1846. Two drawings from nature by Laurеnes were published in 1859, in an album of lithographs, put out as v. 2 of Hommaire de Hell’s accounts of his travels in Turkey and Persia. Alongside these two prints, reproduced in 1912 by Romanians Balş and Ghika-Budeşti, Laurеnes also made a sketch (croquis) of the church plan with an explanatory text. Published in 1860 at the end of v. 4, the last one of the travel notes, these were placed next to the sketch and notes pertaining to another church in Messembria, that of Christ Pantocrator, incorrectly given as Saint-Michel archange. The fact that the plans and the notes happen to be the earliest records of these two churches, affords ground for reproducing them in this article.
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Over the three decades of economic renovation, Vietnam banking sector has been reformed in market-oriented directions and in compliance with international financial standards. The context of deeper financial integration requires a more efficient, resilient and competitive banking sector in the country. For this purposes, in the years to come, the following regulatory measures should be taken into consideration: (1) strengthening the autonomy and capability for the SBV; (2) continuing process of financial restructuring and liberalization to further improve the competitive market behavior; (3) promoting prudent risk management and supervision; (4) cooperating proactively, actively with other countries to cope with common financial risks at regional level; and (5) building a more concrete framework and appropriate roadmap to improve the convertibility of the national currency (Vietnam Dong).
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International economic integration has been a driving force of Vietnam’s growth since Vietnam introduced Doi Moi policy (Renovation) in 1986. This paper focuses on analysing two important aspects of Vietnam’s economic integration, i.e. trade and investment relations between Vietnam and other countries using various trade and investment databases (Vietnam’s General Statistics Office, General Department of Vietnam’s Customs, and UN’s COMTRADE). Study findings show that there have been long-term challenges for Vietnam’s trade structure such as main share of low value of export goods, persistent trade deficit, and main share of import comes from intermediate goods. As for FDI, there is concern on its quality since knowledge-based sectors, such as health, education, training, science and technology, finance, banking and insurance are only modest. Some policy recommendations are put forward to improve trade structure and FDI quality for long-term growth.
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In the course of the restoration work launched in 2015 on the roofing, part of the authentic roof structure was discovered in the northeast corner of the building: a mound of earth thickly strewn with sherds of medieval pottery. Deep down in the mound, amphorae were unearthed, arranged upside down upon evening courses of brickwork. No such find is known to the authors on medieval sites within the contemporary Bulgarian lands. Descriptions of similar building techniques occur in publications on the Ochrid Church of St Sophia of the tenth or the eleventh century. Using pottery to reduce the weight of the structures has been described as a widely spread building method in Byzantium by its earliest explorers. Constructive use of amphorae occurs in Roman buildings between the fourth and the tenth centuries in ribbing small vaults and domes cast of slaked lime or plaster. Using pottery in construction of churches across Europe dates back to the tenth through the fourteenth century and beyond either as a method to improve the acoustics and/or reduce the weight of massive roof truses. The find from Nessebar has an apparent structural function to take the weight off the mould, meant to shape the slopes of the pitched roof.
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This study traces the history of the conservation of the Roman tomb in Silistra, unearthed in 1942. The earliest conservation works were led by experts from the National Museum, Sofia. A number of either unpublished or less known records attesting to the interventions and covering the trends in the preservation of the mural paintings at the tomb over the last seven decades are presented. The grave problems facing the protection of such monuments in this country are due to the flaws in the system of protection of Bulgaria’s heritage sites for want of a sustainable strategy. In such a discouraging context, entrusting the management of the tomb to Silistra Municipality in 2011 could prove to be a step in the right direction. From that moment onwards, local authorities in their own right, enlisting professional organizations and experts to help, have been able to initiate and coordinate all forthcoming initiatives related to the protection of this exceptional monument.
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Egyptian blue is one of the oldest synthetic pigments. It has a particular property – when excited in the visible spectrum to emit strong infra red radiation. The effect is called visible-induced luminescence (VIL). The luminescence of the pigment is so strong, that allows imaging of very small, sometimes almost invisible quantities in the paint. This non-invasive method for identification of the pigment is used in investigation and conservation of cultural properties. The publications on the subject to date are focused mainly on objects in museum collections. The article explores some practical aspects of the imaging of the VIL on wall paintings, both in-situ and in collection or storage. Two case studies are presented: the wall paintings in the late antique tomb in the town of Silistra – examination in situ, and a wall painting fragment from the so-called “Red Church” near the town of Perushtitsa – examination in conservation studio. Different equipment was used as alternative to the one in the publications to date. The results of the examination in the two case studies are compared. The use of different equipment and conditions of imaging are explained and evaluated. The results demonstrate that alternative equipment can be used successfully in VIL of Egyptian blue. The technique can facilitate the examination and documentation of the pigment in conservation of wall paintings and archaeological objects. The method is used for the first time in Bulgaria.
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This article adds yet another monument to the hitherto known churches painted in 1885 by Michalko Golev and Dimiter Sirleshtov from Bansko, i.e. the Church of SS Cyril and Methodius in the village of Dragodan. The article provides a comprehensive description of the mural paintings and the icons at the church. Close attention is devoted to such historic figures as St Prince Boris-Michael and mostly, to Khan Asparukh, the founder of the State of Bulgaria, whose representation is set on a panel below the icons on the iconostasis. The historical sources of the Period of the National Revival used by the painters are overviewed. The modifications in the texts as well as their bearing on the changes in the iconographical programme of the monuments of the Late National Revival Period are traced, which have led to the canonization of such national heroes as Bulgaria’s first sovereign, Asparukh Khan of Bulgaria.
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Written cultural heritage is being preserved mainly in the funds of libraries and museums. Depending to the scientific or cultural area of interest, archival and literary movable cultural properties are being attributed to it. These are manuscripts, incunabula, rare and valuable books, archival documents, periodical editions in the periods 1844-1878 and 1878-1944, rare and valuable editions in different languages dating from 100 years ago, photographs, postal cards, graphics, prints, lithographs, printed maps, posters, watercolor and pastel painting. Deterioration of these monuments is due to the processes of natural aging and physic-chemical destruction of the paper on which they are written, printed or painted, but also due to the way of preservation and usage. In order to protect and preserve the written cultural heritage it is necessary to constantly conduct comprehensive set of activities, including periodic inspection in order to establish the status of the monument or collection; carrying out conservation and restoration processes; creating optimal conditions for preservation and conducting processes of reformatting of the information to another medium in accordance to the requirements imposed by laws, regulations, standards. In reality, however, researches has shown that in general the majority of requirements are not being followed or are unknown to those who are in direct contact with the monuments of the written cultural heritage while performing their specific activities.
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