Description: This paper examines four and-a-half years of prescription records for an elderly population who have relatively comprehensive out-of-hospital drug coverage under the Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly program in Pennsylvania. The result is a discussion of the determination of non-parametric estimations of the distributions. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991, Vol 1.

Description: Genetic algorithms [GAs] and neural networks [NNs] are currently being used in actuarial and financial modeling. Nonetheless, while there is a general awareness of the nature of these techniques, there is often only vague familiarity with the details of how they are implemented. This paper is intended to help alleviate this situation. Its purpose is to present an overview of GAs and NNs, which includes an explanation of what they are, how they work, and an example of how they are implemented.

Description: This paper examines the models underlying three of the most influential FAHP articles.

Description: Recent articles addressed the subject of fuzzy regression [FR] and the term structure of interest rates [TSIR]. Their approach relied on possibilistic regression. Although possibilistic regression has been used in many applications, it has a number of limitations, not the least of which is its nebulous relation to the least-squares concept. As an alternative to possibilistic regression, this paper uses fuzzy least square regression to investigate the TSIR.

Description: This 1978 session on classification models included 1. models demonstrating the effect of a classification system superimposed on a merit rating system and 2. models demonstrating the subsidization of poorer risks.

Description: Presented at October 1985 Annual Meeting. This session focused on three projects funded by the Actuarial Education and Research Fund: risk models, operations research applications for actuaries and probability modeling of losses.

Description: This paper addresses the fuzziness in regression models. The goal is to present a test procedure to explicitly examine whether an independent variable has a clear functional relationship with the dependent variable in a specific regression model, or whether their relationship is fuzzy. To this end, the authors interpret the spread of the regression coefficients as a statistic measuring the fuzziness of the relationship between the corresponding independent variable and the dependent variable. They then derive test distributions based on the null hypothesis that such spreads could have been obtained with data generated by a classical regression model with random errors. The analysis is presented in conceptual rather than technical terms.

Description: This paper gives an overview of fuzzy optimization, presents applications of fuzzy optimization and investigates ways to extend the methodology to risk assessment.

Description: This people provides a derivation of continuous and curtate inequalities of life contingent functions and shows how the proofs of the continuous inequalities are of an entirely different nature from the usual proofs for the curtate inequalities Followed by discussion papers submitted by several authors

Description: The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of soft computing applications in actuarial science. Soft computing refers to modes of computing in which precision is traded for tractability, robustness and ease of implementation.