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The paper puts forward the proposition that today's Bulgarian civic festive calendar may be examined as a system composed not of individual holidays but of corresponding holiday pairs (3 March -- 2 June, St. George's Day -- St. Michael the Archangel's All Soul's Day, 24 May -- 1 November). The holiday pairs have been formed gradually, and in the course of time a 'strong' and a 'weak' holiday came to exist, the former -- honouring a supreme community value, whereas the latter -- paying respect to the memory of the heroes who devoted their lives to its achievement. The paper makes an attempt to substantiate the thesis that dualism is the leading trend in the development of the festive calendar, which might be observed in its past historical stages as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues that the fundamental interdependence between structure and meaning in the joke can be outlined only if the joke cycle is chosen as a main research topic. As an example, the joke cycle Island of cannibals is analysed. The specific features of the cycle are: people from three emblematic communities and the cannibals as characters; an initial frame and their successive episodes; the trial; the gradation. The analysis uncovers the hidden meaning of every specific feature, posing questions about their function. Why is it that the joke must include three successive episodes? The behaviour of the first two characters creates an expectation of a normal reaction of the third character, destroyed at the point of the joke. What is the function of the trial? The trial is a specific rite of passage, etc. These steps help to uncover the hidden meaning of the joke cycle: the "Our" (here - the Bulgarian) character succeeds in proving that he has the cultural competence to become a member of the cannibal society because we are uncivilised, aggressive, "cannibals"… The conclusion is that these jokes release masochistic impulses and they are aimed not at the "Others", but at "Us", or, this is a specific type of auto-racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of beam obliquity on the surface relative dose profiles for the tangential photon beams was studied. The 6 and 15 MV photon beams with 4×4 and 10×10 cm2 field sizes produced by a Varian 21 EX linear accelerator were used. Phase-space models of the photon beams were created using Monte Carlo simulations based on the EGSnrc code, and were verified using film measurements. The relative dose profiles in the phantom skin, at 2 mm depth from the surface of the half-phantom geometry, or HPG, were calculated for increasing gantry angles from 270 to 280 deg clockwise. Relative dose profiles of a full phantom enclosing the whole tangential beam (full phantom geometry, or FPG) were also calculated using Monte Carlo simulation as a control for comparison. The results showed that, although the relative dose profiles in the phantom skin did not change significantly with an oblique beam using a FPG, the surface relative depth dose was increased for the HPG. In the HPG, with 6 MV photon beams and field size=10×10 cm2, when the beam angle, starting from 270 deg, was increased from 1 to 3 deg, the relative depth doses in the phantom skin were increased from 68% to 79% at 10 cm depth. This increase in dose was slightly larger than the dose from 15 MV photon beams with the same field size and beam angles, where the relative depth doses in phantom skin were increased from 81% to 87% at 10 cm depth. A parameter called the percent depth dose (PDD) ratio, defined as the relative depth dose from the HPG to the relative depth dose from the FPG at a given depth along the phantom skin, was used to evaluate the effect of the phantom–air interface. It is found that the PDD ratio increased significantly when the beam angle was changed from zero to 1–3 degrees. Moreover, the PDD ratio, for a given field size, experienced a greater increase for 6 MV than for 15 MV. For the same photon beam energy, the PDD ratio increased more with a 4×4 cm2 field compared to 10×10 cm2. The results in this study will be useful for physicists and dosimetrists to predict the surface relative dose variations when using clinical tangential-like photon beams in radiation therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]