Description: This article analyzes mortality trajectories of supercentenarians (persons living 110+ years) and tests hypothesis about flat mortality at these extreme ages.

Description: Review of an excellent new guide to passing actuarial exams. It was written by Roy Ju, who became an FSA while still a Junior in university.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 11. This is a debate regarding two approaches to Life Insurance Illustrations: The Range approach vs. the Current Scale approach

Description: Of the three issues in health care—coverage, financing, and cost—the overriding issue is holding down the growth in health care costs while simultaneously improving the quality of care. This article introduces new concepts for reducing cost and increasing quality. From Health Watch, January 2008, Issue No. 57.

Description: Letter fron the Chairman.

Description: Discussion of ways direct marketers have beaten recessions in the recent past and suggestions for beating this recession.

Description: This article discusses an upcoming SOA/CAS sponsored project regarding the Modeling of Economic Series Coordinated with Interest Rate Scenarios.

Description: The article summarizes PLRs 201515001 and 201519001, in which the IRS addressed the treatment of a non-qualified deferred annuity contract under the investor control doctrine and other applicable rules. The contract provides a guaranteed lifetime withdrawal benefit and investment options that correspond to “public” mutual funds. The IRS concluded that the investor control doctrine will apply to treat the contract purchaser as the owner of the mutual fund shares for federal income tax purposes. The IRS also addressed certain other tax aspects of the arrangement. The effect of the rulings is that the contract will be taxed similarly to a contingent deferred annuity (where the policyholder holds the mutual fund shares in his or her own brokerage account), while being structured like a traditional deferred variable annuity (where the insurance company holds the shares in its separate account).

Description: This article discussed the NEAT family of neural network algorithms. NEAT automatically determines the number of hidden neurons, as well as their structure. Additionally HyperNEAT can scale to very large problem domains.

Description: 3rd Annual iPad contest announcement