Pension schemes versus real estate

The demographic, economic and social changes that have characterized the last decades, and the dramatic financial crisis that has taken place since 2008, have led to a demand for structural changes in the pension sector and a growing interest in individual pension products. Hence the need, for most elderly people, to liquidate their fixed assets, which are usually the homes in which they live. This highlights products such as reverse mortgages and domestic reversibility plans. Within this context, we propose a contractual scheme where an immediate life annuity is obtained by paying a single-premium in the form of real estate rights (RERs), for example by transferring to an insurer the property title of a house or a similar realty, while keeping its usufruct or a restricted bundle of rights. The level of the installments depends on the fair value of the transferred RER at the contract’s issue, the life expectancy of the insured and the expected growth rate of the real estate market value. The contract design is developed by considering the control of the financial risk inherent in the contract itself, because of the prospective changes in the value of the RERs, and the level of the insurer’s leverage. Finally, we provide some numerical evidence of the proposed contractual structure, in order to compare the level of the installments according to the house return forecasts in different European countries

Two-loop Euler-Heisenberg effective actions from charged open strings

We present the multiloop partition function of open bosonic string theory in the presence of a constant gauge field strength, and discuss its low-energy limit. The result is written in terms of twisted determinants and differentials on higher-genus Riemann surfaces, for which we provide an explicit representation in the Schottky parametrization. In the field theory limit, we recover from the string formula the two-loop Euler-Heisenberg effective action for adjoint scalars minimally coupled to the background gauge field.Comment: 32 pages, 3 eps figures, plain LaTeX. References added, minor changes to the text. Published version, affiliation correcte

Variation in the μ-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) moderates the influence of early maternal care on fearful attachment

There is evidence that both early experience and genetic variation play a role in influencing sensitivity to social rejection. In this study, we aimed at ascertaining if the A118G polymorphism of the k-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) moderates the impact of early maternal care on fearful attachment, a personality trait strongly related to rejection sensitivity. In 112 psychiatric patients, early maternal care and fearful attachment were measured using the Parental Bonding Inventory and the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ), respectively. The pattern emerging from the RQ data was a crossover interaction between genotype and maternal caregiving. Participants expressing the minor 118 G allele had similar and relatively high scores on fearful attachment regardless of the quality of maternal care. By contrast, early experience made a major difference for participants carrying the A/A genotype. Those who recalled higher levels of maternal care reported the lowest levels of fearful attachment whereas those who recalled lower levels of maternal care scored highest on fearful attachment. Our data fit well with the differential susceptibility model which stipulates that plasticity genes would make some individuals more responsive than others to the negative consequences of adversity and to the benefits of environmental support and enrichment

Pb2+ uptake by magnesite: The competition between thermodynamic driving force and reaction kinetics

The thermodynamic properties of carbonate minerals suggest a possibility for the use of the abundant materials (e.g., magnesite) for removing harmful divalent heavy metals (e.g., Pb2+). Despite the favourable thermodynamic condition for such transformation, batch experiments performed in this work indicate that the kinetic of the magnesite dissolution at room temperature is very slow. Another set of co‐precipitation experiments from homogenous solution in the Mg‐PbII‐ CO2‐H2O system reveal that the solids formed can be grouped into two categories depending on the Pb/Mg ratio. The atomic ratio Pb/Mg is about 1 and 10 in the Mg‐rich and Pb‐rich phases, respectively. Both phases show a significant enrichment in Pb if compared with the initial stoichiometry of the aqueous solutions (Pb/Mg initial = 1∙10−2–1∙10−4). Finally, the growth of {10.4} magnesite surfaces in the absence and in the presence of Pb2+ was studied by in situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements. In the presence of the foreign ion, a ten‐fold increase in the spreading rate of the obtuse steps was observed. Further, the effect of solution ageing was also tested. We observed the nucleation of a secondary phase that quickly grows on the {10.4} surfaces of magnesite. The preferential incorporation of Pb2+ into the solid phase observed during precipitation and the catalytic effect of Pb2+ on magnesite growth are promising results for the development of environmental remediation processes. These processes, different from the transformation of magnesite into cerussite, are not limited by the slow dissolution rate of magnesite. Precipitation and growth require an external carbon source, thus they could be combined with carbon sequestration techniques

The Effect of pH, Ionic Strength and the Presence of PbII on the Formation of Calcium Carbonate from Homogenous Alkaline Solutions at Room Temperature

Precipitation of calcium carbonates in aqueous systems is an important factor controlling various industrial, biological, and geological processes. In the first part of this study, the wellknown titration approach introduced by Gebauer and coworkers in 2008 s used to obtain reliable experimental dataset for the deep understanding of CaCO3 nucleation kinetics in supersaturated solutions over a broad range of pH and ionic strength conditions. In the second part, the effect of impurities, i.e., 1 mol% of Pb2+, was assessed in the same range of experimental conditions. Divalent lead has been shown to have an inhibitory effect in all ranges of the conditions tested except for pH 8 and low ionic strength (≤0.15 mol/L). Future investigations might take advantage of the methodology and the data provided in this work to investigate the effect of other system variables. The investigation of all the major variables and the assessment of eventual synergic effects could improve our ability to predict the formation of CaCO3 in complex natural systems

Full Counting Statistics of Spin Currents

We discuss how to detect fluctuating spin currents and derive full counting statistics of electron spin transfers. It is interesting to consider several detectors in series that simultaneously monitor different components of the spins transferred. We have found that in general the statistics of the measurement outcomes cannot be explained with the projection postulate and essentially depends on the quantum dynamics of the detectors.Comment: twocolumns, 4 pages, 2 figure

Genetics influences drug consumption in medication overuse headache, not in migraine. Evidence from Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism analysis

Background: The Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism can influence drug consumption in psychiatric patients with impulsive addictive behavior. This cross-sectional study aims to assess the prevalence of the Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism in MOH, a secondary headache belonging to the spectrum of addictive disorders, episodic migraine (EM), and healthy subjects (HS), and its influence on drug consumption. Methods: One-hundred and seventy-two EM, 107 MOH, and 83 HS were enrolled and genotyped for the Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism. Subjects were classified as homozygous for allele His (H/H subjects), homozygous for allele Arg (R/R subjects), and heterozygous (H/R subjects), regrouped as R/R and carriers of allele H (non-R/R), and matched for clinical data. Results: There were no differences in allelic distributions between the three groups (p = 0.19). Drug consumption and other clinical characteristics were not influenced by the Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism (p = 0.42; β = 0.04) in the EM group. Among the MOH population, R/R subjects consumed more analgesics (p < 0.0001; β = −0.38), particularly combination drugs (p = 0.0001; d = 2.32). Discussion: The Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism has a similar prevalence between the MOH, EM, and HS groups. The presence of the R/R genotype does not influence symptomatic drug consumption in EM, whereas it determines an increased use of symptomatic drugs in the MOH group, in particular combination drugs (i.e., drugs containing psychoactive compounds). Conclusions: Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the Wolframin His611Arg polymorphism plays its effect only in the MOH population, influencing the impulsivity control underlying addictive behavior

MANAGEMENT DELLO SCHWANNOMA INTRALABIRINTICO

Lo schwannoma intralabirintico (SIL) è un raro tumore benigno (prevalenza 0.1-0.4%) che origina dalle cellule di Schwann perineurali del nervo cocleovestibolare prossimale al labirinto membranoso (coclea, vestibolo o canali semicircolari). E’ stato descritto per la prima volta da Meter nel 1917. I sintomi clinici di esordio includono ipoacusia neurosensoriale monolaterale progressiva (95%) e in alcuni casi improvvisa o fluttuante, acufeni (51%), disequilibrio (35%), vertigine (22%), fullness (2%). Alla risonanza magnetica (RM) il tumore si presenta come una massa circoscritta, ipointensa nelle sequenze T2-pesate e con un forte enhancement dopo somministrazione di gadolinio nelle immagini T1-pesate. Lo SIL si pone in diagnosi differenziale con M. di Meniere o neurite vestibolare. La mancanza di sintomi specifici e il lento pattern di crescita spiega la diagnosi tardiva. Oggigiorno la RM permette una diagnosi sempre più precoce e l’ adozione di un appropriato protocollo terapeutico