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This article presents the problem of identity construction among Eastern European immigrants to the USA after so-called “democratic changes.” It is based on the intercultural rather than multicultural approach which considers both the immigrants’ interactions with the host society and their individual choices in constructing identity and selecting a lifestyle. The article is a case study analyzing a “success story” of a person of Bulgarian–Russian origin who immigrated to the USA in the 1990s and built up his identity on the basis of a Russian national narrative. This narrative is rooted in Russian history, classic literature, and art, i.e., in high Russian culture. It serves as a framework for shaping the immigrant’s lifestyle as a whole and permeates the material culture of his home, reflecting the migrant’s perception of what is genuine Russianness. Family relations as well as friendships and relations with people frequenting his house are also aligned with ideas expressing the dominant motifs of the national narrative as it exists in the immigrant’s mind and imagination. Material for the chapter is drawn from fieldwork conducted by the author in 2015–2017 in New York and Long Island.

In 2001, the Bulgarian Government decided to refurbish and convert the research reactor in Sofia into a low-power reactor. Due to this, a partial dismantling of IRT-Sofia’s old systems and equipment was carried out with the intention of reusing the concrete bioshield in the construction of the new low-power research reactor. For a more efficient use of available resources, an engineering project known as “The plan for the partial dismantling of IRT-Sofia equipment as a part of its refurbishment into a low-power research reactor” was drawn up and has since been successfully implemented.

After the decision of the Bulgarian Government to reconstruct it, the strategy concerning the IRT-Sofia Research Reactor is to partially dismantle the old systems and equipment. The removal of the reactor core and replacement of old equipment will not pose any significant problems. For a more efficient use of existing resources, there is a need for an engineering project which has been already prepared under the title "General Plan for the Partial Dismantling of Equipment at the IRT-Sofia as a Part of the Reconstruction into a Low Power RR".

The dispersal of Homo sapiens across Eurasia during MIS 3 in the Late Pleistocene is marked by technological shifts and other behavioral changes, known in the archaeological record under the term of Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP). Bacho Kiro Cave in north Bulgaria, re-excavated by us from 2015 to 2021, is one of the reference sites for this phenomenon. The newly excavated lithic assemblages dated by radiocarbon between 45,040 and 43,280 cal BP and attributed to Homo sapiens encompass more than two thousand lithic artifacts. The lithics, primarily from Layer N1-I, exist amid diverse fauna remains, human fossils, pierced animal teeth pendants, and sediment with high organic content. This article focuses on the technological aspects of the IUP lithics, covering raw material origin and use-life, blank production, on-site knapping activities, re-flaking of lithic implements, and the state of retouched lithic components. We apply petrography for the identification of silicites and other used stones. We employ chaîne opératoire and reduction sequence approaches to profile the lithics techno-typologically and explore the lithic economy, particularly blade production methods, knapping techniques, and artifact curation. Raw material analysis reveals Lower Cretaceous flints from Ludogorie and Upper Cretaceous flints from the Danube region, up to 190 km and 130 km, respectively, from Bacho Kiro Cave, indicating long-distance mobility and finished products transport. Imported lithic implements, were a result of unidirectional and bidirectional non-Levallois laminar technology, likely of volumetric concept. Systematic on-anvil techniques (bipolar knapping) and tool segmentation indicate re-flaking and reshaping of lithic implements, reflecting on-site curation and multifaceted lithic economy. A limited comparison with other IUP sites reveals certain shared features and also regional variations. Bacho Kiro Cave significantly contributes to understanding the technological and behavioral evolution of early Homo sapiens in western Eurasia., Competing Interests: NO authors have competing interests., (Copyright: © 2024 Tsanova et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The prepared heparin-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (Hep-IONPs) contrasted cholangioma tumors in the liver in T 2 MRI. The NPs were not toxic to rats and rabbits after 14 days of consecutive IV injections as observed from the monitoring of the body weight and biochemical and hematological parameters. No embryotoxic or immunotoxic side effects of the material were detected. However, we observed mutagenicity of iron oxide NPs in the Ames test and micronucleus assay. The pharmacokinetic studies showed that Hep-IONPs circulated in the blood for 14 days after IV injection. The liver iron level reached its maximum after 6 hours and slowly decreased within 30 days. Altogether, these results suggest that the synthesized Hep-IONPs are promising for use as the MRI contrast agent to identify liver malignancies.