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Geoarchaeological field survey of ancient ore mining and metalworking in the West part of Zlatisa-Pirdop valley
Get PDFGeo-archaeological field surveys have been carried out in the Western part of the Zlatitsa-Pirdop valley. Archaeological sites and surface collections, traces of metalworking of iron were registered to restore the economic models in ancient times
Survey of the Use of the System for Separate Collection of Household Waste from Packaging in the Municipality of Stara Zagora
Get PDFSeparate waste collection and recycling are at the basis of today’s wastemanagement. This helps the reduction of landfilled waste, which aims to reduce soil, water, and airpollution, on the one hand, and to cut down on the depletion of resources for new production, on theother. A large portion of household waste comes from the so-called “widespread wasteâ€, whichincludes packaging waste. Legislation at European and national levels sets specific goals toovercome this problem. Separate waste collection is carried out by municipalities via wasterecycling companies, which set up and operate systems for separate collection. Citizens are at theheart of the efficient functioning of these systems. A separate waste collection system of this kindhas been established in the municipality of Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. The objective of this paper isto present the results of a questionnaire survey of the system’s users to establish their awareness andattitudes regarding the process of separate waste collection. The results can be used to improve thesystem
Archaeological and Geological Approaches in the Work on the Project “Materiality and ancient environmental knowledge reconstruction trough archaeological chemistry analytical techniques (RE:MATRIARCHES)â€
Get PDFThe study discusses new approaches designed for the purposeful selection of archeological and geological sites and sample collection for analysis via archaeological chemistry techniques. The approaches discussed provide opportunities for coherent interpretation of analytical data in view of the project’s objectives: gaining fundamental knowledge of material culture in different archaeological periods as well as of people’s knowledge of the environment in ancient times
#Foodporn: Fetishized sharing of food and its images
Get PDFOnce translated into images, food acquires a broader meaning. Food is no longer merely something to eat, but to show, share and look at. The increasing amount of images and pictures of dishes on our social networks, associated with hashtags such as #foodporn, expresses this renewed social, communicative and provocative function of food. However, the exhibition of these images is quite ambivalent when it comes to establishing determined patterns of visual and social relationships with and between users. The aim of this article is to analyze and attempt to provide mediation to this ambivalence. The pornographic exposition of food images no longer presupposes a transitive form of consumption by the user, but becomes pure and self-reflexing spectacle. The images are obscene (Baudrillard [1981] 1994) and characterized by an excess of transparency on their object which abolishes any form of seduction (Baudrillard [1979] 1990). Barthes ([1980] 1981) defines this kind of image as unary. Pornographic images are an emblematic example. In terms of their self-evident objectivity, these pictures lack any punctum, any piercing sign of a relationship with or openness to the observer (see Eco 1962; 1979). Nevertheless, behind their apparent transparency, the images are always products of specific perspective cuts, and still able to convey mystery, meaning and involvement. The unary image of food is a further fragment in a series of multiple perspectives on the same object. Such potentiality is actualized in our (social) media culture in which sharing and continuous remediation of images and pictures of food constitute a complex storytelling of the object. This, in turn, fosters further participation by the users. The ambivalence between the indifference of the pornographic image and the involvement in the serialization of the detail is synthetized by the notion of fetishism (Baudrillard [1972] 2019). The social (and) media scenery seems to exemplify and radicalize a sort of commodity fetishism, in which social relationships between users are shaped and mediated by (social) media relationships between images of food
Virtual tryvertising. Marketing strategies for empowered customers
Get PDFThe aim of this study is to look at the experiential marketing strategy of virtual tryvertising, by analysing a specific case study: the augmented reality application Ikea Place. It provides customers with a set of tools to prefigure a virtual representation of a piece of a furniture within a physical space, in order to appraise its fitness in a prior time to its actual purchase, and hence to provide a benefit for him/her. The semiotic analysis will be carried out by taking into account the use practices prescribed by the application and the promotional discourses of the company. In particular it will look at two advertising videos which accompanied the launch of the application in 2013 and 2017. It will also consider the added value and the experiential gain for users that the adoption of this type of technology entails, in order to understand AR media not only as a mere strategy for commercial purposes, but as a tool for empowering the users’ appraising skills traditionally used in the context of a dressing room of a physical store
The Status of English in Morocco: Lessons from Spontaneous Debates in Social Media
No full textMorocco, a multilingual country with historical and geo-political legacies, has opened a hot debate on languages recently. Within this debate, this article investigates spontaneous comments in social media on languages in Morocco, especially adopting English as a first foreign language. It aims to bring this topic to the surface and thus discuss it in the light of research on language attitudes and language awareness. To do so, it analyses the reactions to texts about the declarations by the Minister of Higher Education shared in social networks and sites. The data consisting of 2,018 comments is classified according to 12 frequent patterns whose frequencies are calculated. The findings show that most of Moroccans have positive attitudes towards English while some show opposing reactions towards French. These participants hold ambivalent opinions about the rest of languages used in Morocco; however, they tend to insist on Morocco having a clear language policy which, seemingly, prioritises the mother tongues, Arabic and Amazigh. The discussions show that some investigated reactions are mitigated as they may be illusionary
Expressing Lesser Relevance in Academic Conference Presentations
No full textWhile marking importance and relevance in academic discourse has been a widely researched topic, markers of lesser significance have so far been understudied. The article therefore focuses on some of the discoursal means of expressing lesser importance in conference presentations. The corpus of the study comprises recordings of 20 presentations in English at international linguistics conferences by speakers of various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The methodology follows Deroey and Taverniers’s (2012) study of lecture discourse, whereby depending on the way lesser importance is expressed, the markers are grouped under five categories. Their methodology is checked against the data provided by the transcriptions of the conference recordings to ascertain the extent to which it is applicable to other spoken academic genres. The ultimate objective is to provide steppingstones for interpreting information and distinguishing between what is important and relevant and less so in conference presentations, as well as for the identification of presenters’ motivation for employing this type of metadiscourse
Political culture and entrepreneurial activity as prerequisites for positive development in Bulgaria
No full textThirty years ago, Bulgaria made a shift towards democratic development, but the social environment has the potential to strengthen or undermine the selected direction. The aim of the current work is to identify the state of Bulgarian political culture and entrepreneurial activity and make a forecast about their future development. The object of the study is Bulgaria since 1989. The focus are a selection of indicators, regarding the political culture and entrepreneurial activity. In order to achieve our goal we make review of the studies, regarding the topic and use quantitative data in order to evaluate the political culture and entrepreneurial activity. Among the sources are European values study, World values survey, Eurostat and Global Entrepreneurship Index
State and development of electronic business in tourism
No full textThis article analyze basic characteristics, peculiarities and tendencies in the development of e-business. In the article are systematized stages and principles in the development of e-business. Based on the study of the dynamics of e-commerce in tourism, are presented specifi c recommendations for its management in tourism companies. It is argued that with the development of e-business and e-commerce, tourism companies could successfully develop a personalized e-business strategy, could select and manage customer relationship and analyze quickly business situations and forecast their development