Description: A review of the Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization courses with special emphasis on how they may be useful to actuaries.

Description: This article describes a method that can be useful when re-fitting a risk score model to a population of only moderate size. Learn how to use concepts like ridge regression to train a model with partial credibility.

Description: First article in a series that walks through the progression from developing LTC assumptions using traditional methods to doing so using predictive analytics.

Description: Python is the leading programming language for data science. Python programming is one skill that actuaries should acquire. It facilitates analytic work, and the available visualization tools help to communicate ideas. In this article, I use a traditional actuarial problem, mortality modeling, as an example.

Description: Third article in a series on how to use predictive analytics to improve the development of long-term care projection assumptions.

Description: While many know that machine learning is a big deal and even have a general idea of what it is, many do not know what machine learning can do for them. As an alternative to citing achievements or explaining algorithms, this article outlines the challenges that occur in statistics and the solutions that machine learning offers. Some of those challenges include correlated predictors, missing data, data interaction, and prediction intervals. Corresponding solutions include regularization technics, missing value imputation with KNN, tree based models, and cluster analysis for backtesting.

Description: Reviewing a text covering multiple statistical modeling topics: e.g., generalized linear models, decision trees, clustering, using the statistical language R.

Description: Second article in a series on how to use predictive analytics to improve the development of long-term care projection assumptions.

Description: An introduction of predictive modeling techniques that are applicable to insurance industry, including generalized linear model (GLM) and classification and regression tree model(CART). Other models such as data clustering, neural network, and support vector machine (SVM), are also briefly discussed.