Chairman of the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Vladimir Gusakov answers the most pressing questions about the current state and future of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences.

The author considers the problem of intangible cultural heritage preservation by museum means, and gives the examples of Belarusian museums effective work on its documentation, study and interpretation.

On the basis of published and field expedition materials, the author describes the folk knowledge, regulations of woman’s behavior during pregnancy and childbirth, obstetric and ritual-magical actions of midwives, customs of naming a child, visiting the lying-in woman, choosing godparents, rites of celebrating baptisms, signs and beliefs related to the baby’s first bath, his first steps, speech, haircut.

The article tells about the Belarusian Christian holiday traditions, which being different in the canonical interpretation of each denomination, have become part of the history and culture during its thousand-year period on the Belarusian land.

The author considers plays-tales for children based on folklore materials. The appropriate differentiation of the works was made, and their main features were considered. It was emphasized that the level of this part in the modern literary process looks acceptable both in quantity and quality.

The article considers the regional aspect of the intangible cultural heritage of Belarus used in tourism, and gives the prospects for further tourist representation of the country’s ethno-cultural resources.

The necessity of having high-quality tools for the balanced development of the diversified complex of the Union State is substantiated. Based on existing developments, a working model of economic planning has been formed, supplemented with modern mathematical tools that have proven themselves in the recent past and can be used today with great efficiency.

The author presented the theoretical concept of behavioral economics, which explains the nature and mechanisms for the state regulation of entrepreneurship implementation in modern conditions.

The author presented her subsystem model of motivational management, and gave a definition of a hybrid model of such management.

The research has conducted a comparative study based on structural analysis of some productivity parameters of the new lentil collections. In genotypes have been recorded the average genetic variation on plant height, number of seeds in beans, number of beans per plant, and 100 seeds weight. It was found that 10.8% of the studied samples were high-yielding (10943, 10946, 10932, Flip 2011-64, Flip 2011-31), 32.6% were moderate-yielding, 56.6% were assesed as low-yielding samples. Among the genotypes Flip2011-64, Flip2011-31, Flip2011-43, 10946, 10940, 10931, 10932 and Jasmin were evaluated as the most promising samples.

The article assesses the degree of participation of the microbiome in the development of the pre-tumor process of the gastrointestinal tract. The necessity of studying the pathology of the gastrointestinal tract at the genetic level in relation to the persistence of microorganisms that affect the expression of human genes is shown: their proteins and metabolites interact with the genome, modifying it. The role of opportunistic microflora in the regulation of the immune response in patients with cancer and changes in microbiocenosis in lesions of the large intestine, liver and pancreas, as well as its significance in carcinogenesis are presented. The need for further studies of the mechanisms of development of the tumor process of the gastrointestinal tract and determination of the relationship between the microbiome, the human immune system and carcinogenesis is emphasized.

At present time, with the development of the industrial complex of the Republic of Belarus, the volume and depth of oil refining at refineries are increasing. In this regard, the amount of by-products produced, in particular sulfur, is increasing. One of the possible ways to expand markets for the use of sulfur is to use it in non-standard industries, in particular in construction, for the production of building materials based on sulfur binder. In this article, authors analyze the world experience in the production of sulfur concrete, as well as the results of experimental studies of the properties of sulfur concrete obtained by the authors on the basis of local raw materials.