Stochastic analysis in life office management: applications to large annuity portfolios

The paper deals with the riskiness analysis for a large portfolio of life annuities. By means of the limiting distribution of the present value of the portfolio, in the first part of the paper a model for evaluating the investment and the projection risks is presented. In the second part, with regard to the investment risk's effects, the insolvency risk is measured considering the cumulative probability distribution function of the discounted average cost per policy. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Steady flows of compressible fluids in a rigid container with upper free boundary

We consider fluid in a smooth rigid container whose lateral boundary is a piece of vertical cylinder, bounded above by a free upper surface. As basic flow we consider the non homogeneous rest state in the presence of gravity, and of a surface tension. Under these assumptions, we study the existence of a steady free boundary and a steady motion in of an isothermal viscous gas, resulting as perturbation to the rest state in correspondence of small non potential perturbations to the (large potential) gravitational force. We linearize the problem by prescribing the unknown domain , then we make use of the iterative scheme introduced by Heywood and Padula. Our method is based on an iteration between the Neumann problem for a non homogeneous Stokes system for the velocity, the Neumann problem for an elliptic problem on for height, and a steady transport equation for the perturbation to the density. The difference of boundary condition between lateral boundary and free upper surfaces causes a singularity at the intersection (contact line). To avoid singularities on the contact line, we adopt weighted Sobolev spaces.     

A simple proof of the linear instability of rotating liquid drops

We give a simplified proof of the linear instability of equilibrium figures of rotating liquid based on energy estimates.      

Transport properties of organic vapors in nanocomposites of isotactic polypropylene

Isotactic polypropylene nanocomposites were obtained by the melt blending of polypropylene‐graft‐maleic anhydride and organophilic layered silicate (OLS) consisting of synthetic fluorohectorite modified by cation exchange with protonated octadecylamine. The composition of the inorganic clay was varied between 2.5 and 10 wt %, and films of the composites were obtained via hot‐press molding. X‐ray analysis showed that nanocomposites in which silicate layers were either delaminated or ordered as in an intercalated structure were obtained. The elastic modulus of the samples was higher than that of the pure polymer over a wide temperature range and increased with increasing inorganic content. The transport properties, sorption and diffusion, were measured for two organic vapors, dichloromethane and n‐pentane. For both vapors, the sorption was not very different from that of the pure polymer, whereas the zero‐concentration diffusion parameter strongly decreased with increasing OLS content. Therefore, the permeability, that is, the product of sorption and diffusion, decreased for both vapors as a result of the decreased value of the diffusion parameter. The decrease was higher for the less interacting n‐pentane. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 1798–1805, 2003     

Caprine herpesvirus 1 (CpHV-1) vaginal infection of goats: clinical efficacy of fig latex

Clinical score (A) and viral shedding (B) in goats vaginally infected with CpHV-1 and treated with fig latex (goats A, B, C). Goat D was left untreated.     

Sulla stabilità di un fluido politropico, viscoso e pesante in un contenitore limitato da pareti perfette conduttrici di calore

Sunto In questa Nota, si affronta il problema del comportamento asintotico nel tempo di perturbazioni alla quiete per il sistema di equazioni per un fluido comprimibile, viscoso e politropico. Ammesso che esista una soluzione regolare globale, si dimostra, sotto l’ipotesi che il gradiente della temperatura assegnata al bordo sia piccolo, che la differenza tra la soluzione corrispondente a dati iniziali arbitrari e la quiete decade a zero pert che tende ad infinito nella normal diL ².

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We consider the equation system for a compressible viscous polytropic fluid in a regualar bounded domain and we study the asymptotic behavior as time goes to infinity of perturbations with respect to the basic rest state. Under the assumption of the smallness of the gradient of the given temperature on the boundary, we prove the exponential decay of theL ²-norm of the difference between the solution corresponding to arbitrary initial data and the rest state.

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The second author thanks the 60% contract MURST, also she acknowledges the GNFM of italian CNR-INDAM for financial supports.     

Anti-inflammatory cyclopeptides from the marine sponge Theonella swinhoei

DCCC chromatography followed by HPLC purification on the polar extract of marine sponge Theonella swinhoei resulted in the isolation of five new cyclopeptides, perthamides G–K. The new structures, featuring unprecedented amino acid units, were determined by interpretation of extensive spectroscopic and spectrometric data (MS, ¹H and ¹³C NMR, COSY, HSQC, HMBC, and ROESY). Pharmacological analysis demonstrated that these natural cyclopeptides are endowed with anti-inflammatory potential as assessed by their ability to reduce carrageenan-induced mouse paw oedema.     

On the Exponential Stability of the Rest State of a Viscous Compressible Fluid

We prove that the rest state of a viscous isothermal gas filling a bounded rigid vessel, is exponentially stable with respect a large class of "weak" perturbations that, in particular, allow for supersonic flow and discontinuous densities. In the inviscid limit, marginal stability is recovered.     

Sui problemi al contorno per le equazioni ellittico-paraboliche di ordine 2m

Summary In this note a theorem of existence and uniqueness for a boundary value problem for a class of 2m-order elliptic-parabolic operators is proved.

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Entrata in Redazione il 15 settembre 1976.

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Lavoro eseguito nell'ambito del Gruppo Nazionale per l'Analisi Funzionale e le sue Applicazioni del C.N.R.