Current Issue Published
Journal of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
- Year: 2026
- Number: 5
- Language: Български, English
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Innovative Technologies and Therapeutic Approaches for Diabetes Mellitus
Author(s): Tsvetalina TankovaKeywords: insulin, diabetes, automated insulin delivery systems, SGLT2 inhibitors, GLP-1 receptor agonists, innovative therapyAbstract: Since the discovery of insulin, there have been numerous advances in insulin therapy aiming to reproduce physiological insulin secretion as closely as possible to maintain near-normal blood glucose levels, thereby preventing long-term complications. Multiple insulin formulations have been marketed, predominantly insulin analogues. However, research into new formulations and ways of administration of insulin continues, with once-weekly basal insulin analogues, glucose-sensitive insulins (smart insulins), and non-injectable insulins to come. After all the advances in the development of new insulins, the efforts focused on administration methods (insulin pumps) as well as devices (continuous glucose monitoring systems – CGMs). The latest advances in insulin therapy are the automated insulin delivery (AID) systems, integrating three components: a real-time CGM, an insulin pump, and a control algorithm to automate subcutaneous insulin delivery. AID therapy has been shown to improve HbA1c, increase time in range (TIR) with either no increase or a reduction in hypoglycemia compared with other therapies, and to be associated with significant improvements in quality of life and reduced burden of diabetes management for people with diabetes and their families. Therefore AID therapy should be recommended to youth and adults with type 1 diabetes as it increases the likelihood of reaching glycemic targets. The currently available hybrid closed-loop systems still require carbohydrate counting and manual initiation of the insulin bolus to be delivered before the meal. Working towards a fully closed-loop system is the focus of current research. There are a lot of advances in type 2 diabetes management as well. The management approach to type 2 diabetes must be holistic, person-centred and multifactorial, including glycaemic management, weight management, cardiovascular risk factor management and cardio-renal protection. Cardiorenal outcomes trials have demonstrated the efficacy of SGLT2 inhibitors in reducing the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), cardiovascular death, hospitalisation for heart failure and all-cause mortality, and improving renal outcomes in individuals with type 2 diabetes with an established/ high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). GLP-1 RA have demonstrated to reduce the risk of MACE, CV death, fatal or non-fatal myocardial infarction, fatal or non-fatal stroke, all-cause mortality, composite kidney outcome in adults with type 2 diabetes with an established/high risk of CVD. The current innovative glucose-lowering medications (SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 based therapies) are recommended in the guidelines as first-line therapy in different subgroups of patients with type 2 diabetes because they have demonstrated cardio-renal protective effect, even in people without diabetes. Thus we have moved from a glucocentric to a cardio-renal-metabolic approach in type 2 diabetes. Innovative therapeutic approaches – automated insulin delivery systems, sensors for continuous glucose monitoring, medications that, in addition to blood glucose control, also provide numerous additional benefits, significantly improve the health and quality of life of people with diabetes.
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Intraarterial Administration of Lidocaine into the Middle Meningeal Artery for Headache and Neck Stiffness Following Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Haemorrhage: a Review and Clinical Experience
Author(s): Svetozar Matanov, Kristina Sirakova, Kristian Ninov, Mihail Kalnev, Krasimir Minkin, Stanimir Sirakov, Alexander SirakovKeywords: subarachnoid haemorrhage; headache; lidocaine; middle meningeal artery; endovascular treatment.Abstract: Headache after aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (aSAH) is often severe, persistent and difficult to control, while systemic analgesics may suppress consciousness and interfere with reliable neurological assessment. This review discusses the anatomical and pathophysiological rationale for using the middle meningeal artery (MMA) as an accessible route for modulating meningeal nociception. Published evidence on selective intra-arterial lidocaine for refractory headache and aSAH-related headache is summarised. We also present the clinical experience of a Bulgarian neurointerventional centre in 74 patients treated after endovascular securing of a ruptured intracranial aneurysm. Among 72 evaluable patients, median pain intensity on an 11-point numerical rating scale decreased from 8 at admission to 1 five hours after the procedure. A score of 0–1 was achieved in 55.6%, and 79.2% reported no headache at three months. Nuchal rigidity also progressively improved. Immediate angiographic vasoconstriction was documented in 130 of 131 treated arteries. No complication was directly attributed to MMA catheterisation or lidocaine administration. The findings demonstrate the technical feasibility of the method and suggest a potential clinical effect; however, the uncontrolled observations do not allow a definitive conclusion regarding efficacy. Prospective controlled studies using a standardised protocol are required.
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The April Uprising of 1876 – the Path to the Resurrection of the Bulgarian State, the Anniversary Celebrations and Historical Science
Author(s): Ivan RoussevKeywords: April Uprising of 1876, Bulgarian history, National Revival Period, historical sources, historical archivesAbstract: This article is an attempt to highlight the achievements and outline the possibilities for the development of Bulgarian historical scholarship on the topic of the April Uprising of 1876, as well as to explore opportunities for future in-depth research into this event, which is one of the most significant in Bulgarian national history. This can be achieved through the preparation of documentary publications and original scholarly research. To build upon the achievements of previous generations of researchers, it is necessary to form well-prepared teams and to engage in systematic, long-term work to locate and publish new historical sources. The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and its institutes specializing in historical studies, as well as the Bulgarian academic historical community as a whole, have the capacity to achieve all of this. The great traditions of our historical scholarship and the high standards of contemporary humanities compel us to do so.
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The Economic Structure of the Athonite Monasteries and Modern Holding Companies. A Precursor or an Analogue?
Author(s): Radostin VazovKeywords: Mount Athos, monastic economy, metochion, holding company, economic history, institutional analysisAbstract: For more than a millennium the monasteries of Mount Athos owned and managed estates scattered across the Balkans, the Aegean and Constantinople, and later across the Danubian principalities. The organisational form through which they did so was the network linking a mother monastery to its metochia. The claim that these monasteries operated “like holding companies” recurs in the literature, but almost always as a metaphor without a definition of the term, without explicit criteria, and without a test of whether the resemblance is structural or merely rhetorical. This article asks to what extent the monastery – metochion structure can be regarded as a functional predecessor of the modern holding company. It treats the comparison as heuristic rather than genealogical, following Rancière’s notion of anachrony while accepting Febvre’s warning against anachronism, and it compares the two forms along five dimensions ownership, control mechanisms, financial strategy, asset management, and diversification and risk. The evidence comes from typika, imperial charters, Athonite acts, Ottoman fiscal registers and monastic account books, read through the specialised literature. The answer is differentiated. On four dimensions separation of assets from persons combined with perpetual succession, hierarchically delegated control under centralised strategic oversight, consolidation of resource flows, and deliberate diversification the Athonite network solved problems in ways functionally close to those of a modern corporate group. On the fifth, ownership in the strict sense of transferable capital, no resemblance exists and none can be constructed. The monastery is therefore a functional, not an institutional or genealogical, predecessor what the evidence supports is convergent institutional development rather than transmission. The article makes two contributions. It converts a widespread metaphor into a testable comparative framework, and it proposes a two-level reading that reconciles the corporate analogy with the commons interpretation of the Byzantine monastery internally, at the level of membership, the monastery behaves as a commons; externally, at the level of its property network, it behaves as the centre of a group of economic units. Its durability rests on the combination of the two. The analysis is qualitative and institutional; the natural continuation is a quantitative reconstruction of the revenue and expenditure series of a single monastery and its metochia, for which the Bulgarian case of Zographou offers the most promising material.
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Rayna Popgeorgieva – the Bulgarian Princess (170 Years since Her Birth)
Author(s): Yachko Ivanov
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The April Uprising and Marko Balabanov
Author(s): Boyan Angelov
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Januarius Aloysius MacGahan: “Liberator of Bulgarians”
Author(s): Encho Gospodinov
- Exhibitions dedicated to the 150th Anniversary of the April Uprising
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The April Uprising of 1876
Author(s): Hristo Hristov
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The Energy of the Spirit and Scientific Insight (90th Anniversary of Academician Bogdan Petrunov)
Author(s): Ivan Granitsky
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Academician Bogdan Petrunov Celebrated His 90th Birthday
Author(s): Iva Hristova
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Stefan Tsanev – May We Burn Forever Like Stars (90th Anniversary of Stefan Tsanev)
Author(s): Ivan Granitsky
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Someone Wake Me Up! (Love and Suffering – Literary Twists and Turns)
Author(s): Valery Stefanov
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The Issue of Violence, Crime, Horror and Brutality in Western European and American Novels. Bogomil Rainov’s Theory
Author(s): Panko Anchev
- International Scientific Cooperation
- International Conference Marking the 80th Anniversary of Academician Petar Popivanov
- Corresponding Member Georgi Gospodinov Awarded the Jean Monnet Prize
- Academician Vassil Kazandjiev
Journal of BAS
ISSN 0007-3989 (print)
ISSN 2683-0302 (on line)
150 Years
"Journal of the BAS"
Sections in the Issue
In the issue you can read articles from the following sections.