Description: Summary of the excellent Abstract serve provided to M&PD section members

Description: This article is a review of the book by Joshua Foer. It covers the history of memory techniques, the way a human brain organizes memory, and various problems and successes in memory recall. The author starts by interviewing memory savants, and learns from them that the ability to perform seemingly impossible memory tricks is simply a matter of studying and practicing proven techniques used for millennia. This review suggests that actuaries can benefit greatly from some of these techniques despite the availability of electronic hand-held devices to recall facts because the person who does not need to rely upon such devices can have a huge perceptual advantage in executive presentations.

Description: Alternative sources of learning available for free or at low cost if you wish to round out your F&F education about machine learning, artificial neural networks, genetic algorithms and the millennia of biological advances we draw from when we use these techniques.

Description: Editorial overview and issue introduction

Description: A review for the book Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge, M.D. and how it ties with the Actuary of the Future Section by Dave Snell. Dave relates to his own experience and finds that among a list of activities that could make you younger, his volunteering experience with SoA certainly helped make him feel a lot better. The article concludes that we have control over how we age and let us all make our future “Strong, Fit, and Sexy—Until You’re 80 and Beyond.”

Description: This article is a review of the book by Joshua Foer. It covers the history of memory techniques, the way a human brain organizes memory, and various problems and successes in memory recall. The author starts by interviewing memory savants, and learns from them that the ability to perform seemingly impossible memory tricks is simply a matter of studying and practicing proven techniques used for millennia. This review suggests that actuaries can benefit greatly from some of these techniques despite the availability of electronic hand-held devices to recall facts because the person who does not need to rely upon such devices can have a huge perceptual advantage in executive presentations.

Description: The author recounts his experience as a keynote speaker at the Actuarial Research Conference and provides advice to young actuaries to present complex subjects in an understandable manner.

Description: Second article in a series on effective writing: focuses on writing for Chinese readers if English; and on writing for English readers if Chinese.

Description: The editor of the newsletter provides a running list of articles included in the issue highlighting such topics as the applicability genetic algorithms, the power of group dynamics, judgmental forecasting, improvement in mortality and complexity science.

Description: Provides a simplified explanation of the modeling and statistical terms currently in use by the profession, and provides a list of publications worth reading in regards to complexity science plus a list of free software.