Description: This article describes the use of artificial society modeling to gauge the effect of insurance agent population and effectiveness on individual life insurance sales. This is part of an ongoing effort to extend the use of one type of agent-based modeling beyond health care, but is far from a practical application at this point.

Description: Provides details of the 2nd forecasting competition for the best model that predicts the Civilian Unemployment Rate 'UNRATE', measured on a monthly basis, from March-end 2012 through September-end 2012.

Description: The author discusses the field of artificial intelligence, as well as some of the key definitions along with some possible applications.

Description: Book review of: Social Science from the Bottom Up, by Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell

Description: In Complexity: A Guided Tour, readers are given a short history lesson on the roots of dynamical systems theory, chaos and prediction.

Description: Jeff Sagarin is one of the most well-known figures in the sports analytics world, with his sports ratings appearing in USA Today for over 30 years. Few may know that he started his career in the actuarial world, even passing three exams before his sports ratings took off. This article explores the parallels between the challenges of developing sports rating systems and the challenges that actuaries face every day.

Description: An introduction to Hidden Markov Models, which are used extensively in speech and facial recognition technology. They are a useful tool in forecasting time series and in developing categorizations of data based on the values of the data themselves.

Description: Can the aggregate results from a group be used to forecast something as subjective and judgmental as one single person’s opinion? Forecasting of this type commonly uses a set of techniques known as collaborative filtering which is discussed at length in this article.

Description: A summary of a new feature in the newsletter: a forecasting application contest. The Forecasting and Futurism Section will award a 16GB iPad to the section member who develops the best actuarial application of a judgmental forecasting method, incorporating best practices outlined in this issue’s article titled “Best Practices in Judgmental Forecasting.” In addition, we will feature the winning application in an issue of the newsletter.

Description: A summary of how the Forecasting and Futurism Section is networking with other SOA sections and with external organizations to collaborate on various projects. Also highlights new events and projects happening on the forecasting and futurism front.