Description: The author discusses the various components that may have an effect on the future of mortality such as the extinction of numerous species of flora and fauna the growth of agribusiness genetically modified foods, better public health institutions and programs, etc.

Description: This actually is a copy of an appendix of a research paper sponsored by the SOA Committee on Finance Research. You can read the entire research paper: “Lapse Modeling for the Post-Level Period—a Practical Application of Predictive Modeling” at the SOA site https://www.soa.org/Research/Research-Projects/Finance-Investment/lapse-2015-modeling-post-level/#sthash.W9lERSls.dpbs, but you can read this valuable appendix copied here in this issue to see how to build a PM step-by-step using your data and the R programming language. We thank Richard Xu, Dihui Lai, Minyu Cao, Scott Rushing, and Tim Rozar for their excellent paper and the Society of Actuaries, for the permission to reprint this portion of the paper.

Description: This is a summary of the benefits of attending the 2019 Predictive Analytics Symposium.

Description: This is an Editorial describing the need for actuaries to upgrade skills or risk minimization from artificial intelligence.

Description: The author reviews a book the debunks some of the hype we read about using quantity at the expense of quality. She also points out some unrealistic outcomes when data scientists lack business knowledge.

Description: A discussion of what to do in the face of unprecedented change. With so many negative indicators of the economic future, suggestions are made for individual actions.

Description: This article describes how different types of regression models used for fund modeling can affect the variable annuity's risk exposure report and attribution report.

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: This paper explores how health care complexity challenges us to expand our repertoire of actuarial methods—and even recast our trend driver paradigm—in order to do our jobs better and maintain our credibility.