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In the paper we present a securitized bond set in the macrocosm of sustainable fi-nance. The product is generated by a securitization scheme that involves three actors: firms, issuing insurance contracts to protect the health of workers; insurers; investors, betting on the good health management of workers. The product is a derivative linked to an underlying representing the trend of the pandemic, specifically the present COVID-19 number of infected persons compared to its expected value. Aim of the paper is to frame the product in specific categories recognized within the ESG criteria. In particular, two specific categories are identified within the Principles Responsible Investments, which integrate the bond within the ESG products. Moreover, from an insurance point of view, the product can be considered within the most innovative asset categorization for impact finance, recent for the insurance sector. This area en-compasses a limited number of recently developed tools aimed to sustainability and impact.

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.

Changes in demographic structure of a country and economic condition are interconnected causes of new needs that motivate the launch of new financial instruments. One of these is the Reverse Mortgage (RM): a contract in which a homeowner borrows a part or the totality of the future liquidation value of his/her home at the time of his/her death. The paper analyses the contractual details and discusses the impact of the main variables on the lamp sum that an elderly homeowner receives at the inception of the contract. The risks factors that influence the pricing of the RM are both strictly demographic, i.e. the life of the contractor, and financial, in particular the evolution of the real estate market and of the financial market.

In its basic structure, the reverse mortgage (RM) is a contract where a home owner borrows a part or the totality of the future liquidation value of his home at the time of his death. The risks that are borne by the lender are linked to the volatility of the real estate market, that is the house price risk, the financial market risk, that is the interest rate risk, and the uncertainty of the borrower’s lifetime, that is the longevity risk. The quantification of the future liquidation value and its valuation at the issue time is fundamental in the construction of the RM contract either in the perspective of the lender or in the one of the borrower. In the paper, we explore the use of neural networks to project the real estate market data; this approach allows to obtain a predictive analysis of the pricing process and indeed provides a dynamic pricing algorithm.

Reverse mortages (RM) provide an attractive way to increase retirement incomes and to face the needs of health care for elderly people. The RM market is exposed to a number of risks: (1) longevity risk, as retirees’ life expectancy increases, (2) interest rate risk, especially in the low-rate post- crisis period, (3) property market risk, in the last stage of the current business cycle. We measure the overall risk for an insurer with a book of RM contracts. We also evaluate the optimal demand for RM in a retiree’s investment portfolio, taking into account diversification with respect to other asset classes..Numerical results are shown and suggestions to further developments of the market are offered.

Since the beginning of the 2000s, the concept of Business Model has been explored by scholars from a broad range of business studies and particularly those in the strategic arena. In the last few years, this interest has also been echoed by accounting and management scholars, professionals, standard setters as well as organisations operating more widely in the corporate reporting field worldwide. Despite this extensive attention from academic, professional and institutional fields, it is still not entirely clear what drivers have led to this concept being espoused by such varied fields of research and action, and what implications can be derived from this. Moving from this standpoint, the paper intends to examine the processes and actors that have accompanied the Business Model in its ‘journey’ from the strategy field to the financial and non-financial reporting fields in order to reveal the similarities and differences that characterise the (disciplinary) attitudes towards the adoption of this concept in these three fields. Accordingly, it provides evidence on the extent to which these three disciplines have to be conceived as static or as subject to continuous change. Drawing on the sociological theory of structuration (Giddens in The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984) applied to disciplinary territories conceived of as social systems, we undertake an in-depth analysis of the articles published in strategy on Business Model as well as the documents released by the International Accounting Standards Board when it formulated the International Financial Reporting Standard 9 and by the International Integrated Reporting Council with respect to the preparation of the International Framework. Our findings support the view that the three arenas have reacted to the adoption of this concept differently, even though some analogies can be observed. Accordingly, the paper intends to contribute to the financial, non-financial reporting and business model literatures and practices, by highlighting the ways in which this concept has entered varied domains of research and action and the extent to which this adoption has affected the foundations and the ‘functioning’ (Bourdieu in Regards Sociol 17(18):5–27, 1999) of these fields.

The Authors propose a personal pension product, consisting of a non-traditional profit sharing life insurance contract where the insured is allowed to share the profit of the pension’s invested funds all along the contract duration, that is from the issue time till the insured’s death. In its concrete realization, the idea comes true as a sequence of premiums characterized by a level cap, followed by the sequence of benefits characterized by a level floor. The two embedded options are inserted in the basic structure of a pension annuity. Due to the negligibility of the pooling effect in such kind of portfolios, the impact of the accidental demographic risk source is investigated.

ResumenObjetivoDemostrar la utilidad de la ecografía Doppler en la detección de la invasión vesical en el percretismo placentario.Materiales y métodosSe evaluó por ecografía, desde noviembre de 2011 hasta mayo de 2013, a 21 pacientes de entre 20 y 44 años que tenían diagnóstico quirúrgico e histopatológico de acretismo placentario (AP).Se consideró invasión vesical a la presencia de estructuras vasculares parietales en la evaluación Doppler color, mientras que se estableció como probable invasión a la presencia de otros hallazgos ecográficos sin señal Doppler.ResultadosDe las 21 pacientes con acretismo placentario, 7 presentaron afectación vesical en el examen histopatológico: 5 tuvieron diagnóstico e informe ecográfico de invasión vesical (por la detección de estructuras vasculares en la evaluación Doppler color) y en las 2 restantes se planteó una probable afectación. De las 14 pacientes sin afectación vesical en el resultado histopatológico, hubo 7 con informes normales en la ecografía y 7 con resultados probables.ConclusiónLa ecografía Doppler es un método muy útil para la detección de la invasión vesical en el percretismo placentario. Esta se observa con una vascularización parietal positiva en el Doppler color.AbstractPurposeTo demonstrate the usefulness of Doppler ultrasound in the detection of bladder invasion in cases of placenta percreta.Materials and methodsTwenty-one patients, aged 20-44 years old, with surgery and histopathological diagnosis of placenta accreta were tested with ultrasound between November 2011 and May 2013.We considered bladder invasion the presence of hypervascularity detected with Doppler ultrasound, and probable invasion the presence of signs in gray-scale ultrasound, without Doppler color.ResultsFrom the 21 patients included in the study with placenta accreta, 7 had bladder invasion in the histopathological study. Out of these seven, five had been reported to have bladder invasion because of the presence of hypervascularity detected with Doppler ultrasound, and the 2 remaining were reported as probably affected. Regarding the other 14, 7 were reported as normal in the ultrasound, and 7 as probable.ConclusionDoppler ultrasound is a very reliable method to detect bladder invasion in placenta percreta, seen as hipervascularity of the uterine-bladder interface in the Doppler color exam.

Twenty-five patients affected by chronic lower limb obliterating arteriopathy with critical ischemia in one limb were treated with PGE1 for 4 weeks and then followed-up for one year. On day 14 of treatment three groups of patients were selected on the basis of clinical symptoms and instrumental tests; patients were subdivided into Responders, Partial Responders and Non-Responders. The results obtained were satisfactory in view of the fact that the selection into three groups enabled Partial Responders to be reclassified, in some cases by repeating the treatment cycle.

Even though with increasing age it becomes progressively more difficult to distinguish between physiologic and pathologic changes and also considering the marked rise in the number of asymptomatic forms, the senile heart appears to be characterized by functional peculiarities rather than by specific organic alterations. Reduced contractility and myocardial compliance lead to the diminished effort adaptation characteristic for old age; to this must be added the degenerative changes of systemic vessels adding up to increased aortic impedance. Aging of the heart is not a clinical entity and therefore on no account requires therapeutic intervention provided investigation of each individual case has ascertained the absence of asymptomatic pathology. The sole possibility apt to delay the onset of overt pathology is physical exercise according to an individually tailored program.