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The article analyses and assesses the flexibility and adequacy of changes in 4 key social assistance programs for vulnerable groups during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022), as well as changes in assistance mechanisms thereafter. The framework of a conceptual vision regarding the parameters of the policy for social support in crisis conditions is presented and specific policy recommendations are suggested. At the basis of the analysis, assessments, conclusions and recommendations is the understanding of the needs for: (i) prior readiness of the state and society to provide crisis social support; (ii) flexibility of social protection system ("social flexsecurity"); (iii) flexible and secure crisis social support through diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a framework for building probabilistic models with subsequential failure transducers. We first show how various types of subsequential transducers commonly used in natural language processing are represented by conditional probabilistic subsequential transducers and probabilistic subsequential failure transducers. Afterwards, we introduce efficient algorithms for composition of conditional probabilistic subsequential transducers with probabilistic subsequential failure transducers and canonization (weight-pushing) of probabilistic subsequential failure transducers. Those algorithms are applicable to many tasks for representing probabilistic models. One such task is the construction of the H C L G weighted transducer used in speech recognition which we describe in detail. At the end, a comparison between the presented H C L G failure weighted transducer and the standard H C L G weighted transducer along with empirical results for HMM-based speech recognition decoding reveal the competitiveness of the presented constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The report examines the territorial disparities in the standard of living at the level of European Union, regions and districts in Bulgaria. The standard of living is defined and assessed from the point of view of material living conditions, which include a number of indicators grouped in three thematic areas: economic development, income and consumption, inequality and poverty. Appropriate statistical indicators are used to assess disparities, and a specific methodology is applied for the assessment of the standard of living, that allows territorial units to be ranked according to the distance from the best value. The results of the empirical study for 2010-2017 show: (a) a low level of the standard of living in Bulgaria compared to the EU countries (28); (b) the disparities between the regions in the country are slightly diminishing and between the districts are preserved; (c) there are significant changes in the ranking of the regions and the districts. Energy poverty is studied and assessed on the basis of indicators identified by the "expenditure method" and the so-called "consensual method". The results for 2014-2016 show: (a) a growing range of energy poverty across all indicators; (b) Bulgaria is lagging behind the other EU member states in limiting energy poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests a short overview of migration processes in Bulgaria since the start of its democratization and transition to market economy. The socio-demographic structure of both potential and return migrants is evaluated empirically using a large sample data for 2013 representative for Bulgarian population aged 18-65. On the basis of a ranking of Bulgarian regions and districts by an integral score of their socio-economic development (involving a set of development indicators) a range of regional disparities are revealed in respect of migration potential, return migration, and remittances allocation and utilization. The rich empirical evidence suggests that Bulgarian migration policies should emphasize substantially on the issues of regional disbalances in order to offset the evaluated distortions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study suggests approaches to developing the strategic frame of the government policy towards persons with disabilities, which would allow successful execution of the country's engagements from the Convention of the rights of persons with disabilities. Its main tasks are analytical review of the range and mechanisms of implementing the compensating policies in social support and providing tax concessions for persons with disabilities; evaluation of the existing strategic frame and approach for developing the government policy for persons with disabilities; arguments for variant approaches for strategic planning of the state policy for persons with disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the results of a systematic analysis of four targeted social assistance programs, carried out for the first time in a Bulgarian scientific research. The analysis covers the key characteristics of the programs - objectives, target groups, guaranteed rights, approach to the way of setting benefit amount, access criteria to targeted benefits, financing methods, major results achieved in the different economic development periods after the changes of 1990. The author has synthesized scientific and applied research findings and evaluations of development and implementation of policies on targeted social assistance in different macroeconomic environment as part of the modernization of social assistance during the period 1990-2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the paper is to systemize and suggest scientific arguments to support the transition in Bulgaria from the model of financing social services based on the principle "money follows the supplier" to the alternative model based on the principle "money follows the client". Object of the study is the financing of the social services in the community. The paper focuses on learning lessons from the international experience (Netherlands, Great Britain) and from the Bulgarian practice. It suggests possible solutions for a change of the model of financing the social services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]