This study analyzes the social significance of prefaces with reference to Bulgarian editions of American literature published between 1948 and 1998. Such prefaces present a diverse body of texts, in different voices, involving numerous actors in the cultural sphere. These raise a range of interesting questions. How do prefaces in Bulgaria structure American literary and cultural studies? What ideological dimensions are found in them through the communist period and immediately afterwards? How are questions about “race” mediated? What do they indicate about Bulgaria’s relations to the USA, the former USSR and other European countries? How aware are American Studies scholars of the underlying presumptions of their professional field? These and other important questions are carefully considered in this book, while exploring a large body of fascinating source material which has received little systematic attention so far.

This book is a collective journal of the COVID-19 pandemic. With first-hand accounts of the pandemic as it unfolded, it explores the social and the political through the lens of the outbreak. Featuring contributors located in India, the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Bulgaria, the book presents us with simultaneous multiple histories of our time. The volume documents the beginning of social distancing and lockdown measures adopted by countries around the world and analyses how these bore upon prevailing social conditions in specific locations. It presents the authors’ personal observations in a lucid conversational style as they reflect on themes such as the reorganization of political debates and issues, the experience of the marginalized, theodicy, government policy responses, and shifts into digital space under lockdown, all of these under an overarching narrative of the healthcare and economic crisis facing the world. A unique and engaging contribution, this book will be useful to students and researchers of sociology, public health, political economy, public policy, and comparative politics. It will also appeal to general readers interested in pandemic literature.

The fact that, of the approximately 600,000 plant species existing on the earth, only some 5 % have been specifically investigated chemically or pharmacologi cally, is a challenge to chemists spezializing in na tural substances and to pharmacologists. In view of the limited number of research capacities and the ever diminishing financial means, this challenge can only be met if, together with an improvement and refinement of methods of analysis, medicinal plant research is carried out on a broader interdisciplinary basis, with comparable, scientifically recognized screening methods, and if it is better coordinated, with greater use of modern documentation means. It is thus necessary in the future to concentrate specifically on projects leading to the development of new medicinal prepara tions. The plenary lectures hold in the present symposium of the 1st International Congress for Research on Medi cinal Plants reflect these efforts and tendencies. At the same time they provide a survey of some of the fields of medicinal plant research which are at present most actual and most intensively researched. They range from plant screening, isolation and structure eluci dation of new principles, to the therapeutical opti mization of a natural product. The lectures given at this congress show clearly the necessity, in addition to national phytochemical so cieties, for a central international organisation, in which all active medicinal plant researchers in the world are included. Their aim should be to provide the impulse for more optimal, rational research, aimed at the solution of specific projects.

"Silver-Halide Recording Materials" gives a detailed analysis of the theory,the characteristics, the manufacturing, and the processing methods of silver-halide materials used for the recording of holograms. Emphasis is placed on the selection of suitable silver-halide materials for conventional as well as special holographic applications. A detailed accountof current developing and bleaching mehtods used in the production of silver-halide holograms is given. The author also supplies a large number of recipes for diffeerent types of processing baths. The text is complemented by a comprehensive list of references which will facilitate anyfurther study. The monograph will be suitable for courses in holography, where the student possesses some background knowledge as regards the general holographic process and the holographic technique.

and used in munitions. Rather the requirements for the agent’s military effects took precedence. In addition, the interaction among the political, technical, and legal challenges connected with the known or possible risks posed by CW agents is complex and sometimes not well understood. This is usually because technical considerations, when acted on, are almost invariably informed by political ones, such as various legal requirements. The book contains nine chapters covering different aspects of the research on environmental consequences of war and its aftermath and covers in one additional chapter more general issues such as prevention of war and its environmental c- sequences, the legal, political, and technical background to selected environmental and human health effects of CW agents, and the atmospheric transport and depo- tion of persistent organic pollutants under warfare conditions to more specific ones related to two main tragic examples: the war in the Balkans and the Gulf War. Aspects of the war in the Balkans cover contamination by heavy metals in Serbian national parks, the impact of NATO strikes on the Danube river basin, and the problems associated with transuranium elements. The Gulf War in Kuwait covers other problems related to the impact of oil contamination, the impact on grou- water resources, and the soil damage of ground fortifications among other envir- mental and health problems.

In znodern pharznacognosy chemical and physical-cheznical methods are being used znore and more for the investigation of medicinal plants. This important fact and the increasing involvement of chemistry, biocheznistry and botany in pllarmaceuti cal, znedicinal and general biological questions usher in a new epoch in the disco very of medicinal substances and the development of drugs derived from the plant kingdom. One of the guiding ideas of the first ""Syznposiuzn on Pharznacognosy and Phytocheznistry"" was to promote these developments, to provide an additional sti znulus and to establish.