Science. Business. Society.
Vol. 9 (2024), Issue 2

Table of Contents

  • SCIENCE

  • BUSINESS

  • SOCIETY

    • Rhodope Humor in California

      pg(s) 50-52

      Affective factors are very important in second or foreign language learning. This study focused on the type of affective interaction a very successful teacher, a non-native English speaker from the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria, used to create rapport with her English language learners in Southern California, USA. During the 75-minute classroom observation, the researcher recorded, coded and counted certain affective markers, such as teacher smiles or laughs, student laughs, teacher jokes, student jokes, teacher gestures, and instances of students initiating questions or information. The subsequent interview revealed the teacher profile, her background, her beliefs about humor and its cultural differences, her students’ response to humor, appropriate topics for joking in the second-language classroom, the effect of humor on student achievement and job satisfaction. The results point to great potential and need for more research on humor in second or foreign language teaching and cross-cultural communication.

    • Increasing students’ motivation in reading, language learning and natural sciences by using some modern nonfiction books

      pg(s) 53-56

      This paper presents some contemporary nonfiction books for extensive reading that can be used with intermediate and advanced students, who are studying English language in a high school or university, especially suitable for programs, connected with natural sciences. The idea is to increase their motivation in reading as well as in learning the foreign language and natural sciences with some interesting assignments connected with these books that will also be proposed in the paper.

    • Active transparency index analysis in the local self-government units from the SWP region in the Republic of N. Macedonia

      pg(s) 57-60

      The aim of the paper is to analyze the degree of practicing transparency and accountability through the index of active transparency by the units of local self-government (municipalities) from the South-west planning region in the Republic of N. Macedonia, with the possibility of free access to public information, the deadline within which the units responded to the request, accountability, integrity, budgetary and financial transparency, as well as the information on the competence and services offered by the units themselves.

    • Health harms and effects after Covid-19 pandemic: Comparison with neighbouring countries

      pg(s) 61-65

      It has been at least 3 years out the risk of the Covid-19 pandemic around the world, a war that continues to have negative effects on people’s behaviour towards other risks because every day that everyday cases of complications are reported even in cases who passed it. This paper presents an overview of the lives lost by Covid-19 in Albania during the first wave of the pandemic as well as the negative effects of people who passed an infection or received the recommended treatment. The focus of our study is on the estimation of case fatality rates (CFRs), referring to the accumulated Covid-19 case data from the World Health Organization website, using simple linear regression for Albania and its neighbour’s. More than three years into the COVID pandemic, both the virus and the measures taken to control its spread have affected people’s lives across the globe. But how can we fully quantify these effects? This is the main topic of this research work.

    • Waste-to-energy solutions for bulgaria’s industrial and municipal waste management

      pg(s) 66-71

      This paper evaluates the potential of waste-to-energy (WtE) solutions in managing industrial and municipal waste in Bulgaria. It provides an overview of current WtE technologies, including thermal, biochemical, and innovative processes, and assesses their applicability within the Bulgarian context. The study highlights environmental and economic benefits such as reduced landfill use, decreased greenhouse gas emissions, and energy recovery. By examining successful implementations in Bulgaria and other EU countries, the paper identifies key challenges and opportunities for scaling WtE solutions. The findings suggest that with the right policy support and investment, WtE can significantly contribute to sustainable waste management in Bulgaria.

    • Emotional Illusions and Smoking: A Novel Psychological Perspective on Nicotine Addiction

      pg(s) 72-75

      According to the World Health Organization, smoking is one of the greatest threats to public health. In Bulgaria, this threat is particularly acute, as the country has the highest percentage of smokers and the highest mortality rate due to tobacco use among EU member states. Despite the well-documented health and financial detriments, the question of why people continue to smoke remains partially unresolved. This article proposes a novel psychological theory suggesting that the mild nicotine abstinent symptoms, combined with the initially unpleasant taste of cigarette smoke, create the perfect conditions for the emergence of “emotional illusions.” Emotional illusions, extensively studied in literature, occur when an unconscious external stimulus elicits an emotion, leading the brain to construct an illusory cause for the emotion. In the context of smoking, it is not boredom, nervousness, or stress that triggers the desire to smoke, but rather the mild withdrawal symptoms that the brain misinterprets as these states. The article concludes with preliminary empirical data supporting this hypothesis.

    • Artificial intelligence systems in public administration. Crowd behavior modeling.

      pg(s) 76-78

      The use of artificial intelligence systems in public administration is of great importance and has great prospects. Artificial intelligence facilitates the interaction of various structures of the state system and the implementation of the direct activities of these structures. For public administration, it is important to analyze the mechanisms of behavior of a mass gathering of people. Since experimental analysis of crowd behavior is impossible, the creation of mathematical models with their subsequent software implementation is of particular importance.