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Accession of Bulgaria to the European Union is expected to result in increases in the prices of all types of real estate, these changes are expected to differ across the segments of the national real estate market. Real estate prices have been influenced primarily by local demand, government policies and the perception that EU accession is promoting investment. It is likely that prices of flats will further differentiate, the market for office space will stabilize, demand from retail sector will strengthen the market for urban development sites, provision of infrastructure will importantly influence prices in holiday resorts and industrial estates, and agricultural land prices will initially upsurge.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of the adoption of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 on the performance of Portuguese companies. The sample includes the companies listed on Euronext Lisbon, with economic, financial and specific information – the specific being environmental information and quality information – for the period between 2015 and 2019, which corresponds to the post-Troika period when some economic growth started to be witnessed. The specific information of each area is translated into the environmental certification by the ISO 14001 standard, the quality certification by the ISO 9001 standard, and sustainability reports.

To achieve this aim, four variables were used as a measure of the companies' performance, Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE); Tobin's Q and EBITDA Margin. With this data, different panel models were tested to validate if ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications impact Portuguese listed companies performance. Specifically, the authors have used the Generalized Method of Moments, GMM-System, an estimation method proposed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998).

The results show that, in general, the environment and quality variables fail to explain the dependent variables, that is, ISO certifications do not provide positive or negative variations in the performance of companies, suggesting that they are not yet as much for civil society, as well as for current or potential shareholders. When used as an independent variable, certification according to the ISO 14001 or 9001 standards, negative and significant oscillations were verified in the dependent variable, MgEBITDA, suggesting that only for managers this variable is determinant, but with a negative impact, given the high costs, it entails without pressure from other stakeholders.

This study is the first to analyze the impact of the adoption of ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 on Portuguese companies' performance. This empirical study aims to show all investors, managers, regulators and civil society itself the long path that still needs to be taken toward sustainability.

2011 marked an extraordinary year in which in cities all over the world, political protest and crowds in the street took over public space, in broad opposition to repressive state associated with neoliberalism. Since 2011, a “new global cycle of protests” has developed, characterized by public expressions of outrage, fury, and resentment. In Sofia, in early 2013, Bulgarians gathered on the streets, for the first time since 1996–1997. After the first protests in early 2013 diminished, a new and even stronger protest movement developed during the summer of 2013. The aim of this paper is to detect the peculiarities and distinctive traits that are unique to the Bulgarian Summer 2013 protests. It is argued that, although the Bulgarian Summer 2013 movement is part of the “new global cycle of protests,” the Bulgarian protests are characterized by a distinctive struggle for cultural recognition that is partly inspired by Bulgaria’s National Awakening movement that had struggled against the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century.

The purpose of this study is to model the electric field distribution in 3D in the vicinity of 400 kV power line to determine the field impact on the environment and on the human body depending on the person location and presence of other objects.

The real 3D geometry of the three-phase line because of the line sag presence and existence of additional objects in its vicinity is considered. The time-harmonic electric field has been modeled, taking into account 1,200 phase shifting between the three-phase, 50 Hz currents. The study has been carried out using the finite element method (FEM) and COMSOL Multiphysics 5.2 software package. Special attention was paid to the field at a height of 2 m from the ground, to estimate the field influence on the located human body in the studied area (in relation to the limits for permissible electric field values).

3D map of electric field in the line vicinity and the electric field strength distribution along the observation surface (2 m from the ground) are determined for several region configurations: without additional objects, human presence just under the line, human at a certain distance from the line and presence of human and a tree. The simulation model was validated on the basis of comparison with computed and experimental data presented in the literature.

3D FEM modeling makes it possible to consider the real environment configuration, presence of line sag and additional objects with different material properties and obtaining of field quantities at any point of observation.

The aim of the paper is to present the experience of New Bulgarian University (NBU) and the methodology followed for changing its educational programmes and developing new ones according to the labour market needs.

Initially, the paper focuses on the need for adapting curricula for meeting the labour market demands for information and communication technologies (ICT) professional skills. It provides an overview of the ICT skills supply and demand trends in Europe. A special emphasis is made on the dialogue of leading stakeholders in Europe for developing European E-Competence Framework. After introducing the overall picture in Europe, the paper presents the environment in Bulgaria for higher education, research and innovation and the ICT skills challenges in the country. The last part of the paper is based on the project methodology and its results. First, the methodology behind the design of a new Masters programme is given, and next, the concepts for adapting NBU educational programmes according to the labour market needs are presented.

Bulgarian universities seldom introduce multidisciplinary educational programmes. Generally, industry involvement in higher education is at low level, and university programmes are not linked to skills needs of future employees. Some good examples exist in the ICT university – business collaboration.

The development of information economy depends on the existence of adequate skills for using and developing ICT. In the last decades, ICT skills supply and demand remains an evergreen issue in many European Union Member States. Bulgaria also faces the challenges of meeting industrial demands for e-competences of its workforce. The paper presents an approach which could be followed by other university teams in designing or changing their educational programmes. At the same time, it provides insight on the overall environment in the country, and the challenges which different stakeholders face in the development of the knowledge-based economy.

The purpose of the paper is to clarify the influence of introducing magnetic concentrators on the performance of Hall effect based current sensors and to obtain dependencies of the sensor characteristics on the conductor position.

The finite element method and Comsol software are used for analysis of the three-dimensional magnetic field of the constructions of Hall effect based current sensor with different types of magnetic concentrators – closed-core (of rectangular and toroidal type) and open-core of toroidal type – with additional larger air gap. The Hall plate is also included in the model with its real dimensions and the magnetic flux density is obtained by integrating over its volume.

It has been found that there is dependence of the output signal (proportional to the magnetic flux density) of Hall effect based current sensor with both closed- and open-core magnetic concentrators on the position of the current carrying conductor. Distribution of the magnetic flux density and dependencies of its value in the Hall plate on the conductor position and on the additional air gap have been obtained. Optimization is carried out with respect to the additional air gap and cross-section dimensions of the concentrator.

Estimation of the influence of the introducing magnetic concentrators is made with respect to relationships between the output signal and conductor position for different constructions of the magnetic core of the concentrators.

Universities expose higher education professionals to complex organisational environments, expecting them to comply with structures, policies and practices. A university is not so different in this respect from other Communities of Practice (Wenger, 1998), in which the pressures to conform are often greater than the inducement to be original, and in which being different may be implicitly discouraged. The relationship between the individual and the established power structures becomes even more complicated when a university is going through the transitions and challenges that are inherent to internationalisation. This chapter examines the challenges and opportunities experienced by academics who are cultural and linguistic outliers within the setting of a European university, showing how the assumptions, values and expectations of the university environment can affect individuals’ ability to perform agentically. We consider how these academic outliers make meaning of being professional within the context of internationalisation and consider how such efforts can contribute to new understandings of interculturality. We further examine how alternative ways of being can result in new modes of engagement with colleagues. Drawing on interviews with six academics within a single institution, this chapter offers a version of the truth that is ‘woven from an amalgam of raw data’ (Clough, 2002), resulting in an exploratory narrative in the voices of fictionalised protagonists.