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As the coronavirus circles the globe, the only thing spreading faster is disinformation on so-called "social media". In addition to ridiculous conspiracy theories, quack preventions range from the ineffective to the downright dangerous.
Best practice in mortality work - regulatory comments
In a letter to the Chief Actuaries of UK insurance businesses, Malik (2019) highlighted two aspects of what the regulator regards as good practice in mortality work
Mortality crossover
In a previous blog I discussed the importance of mortality convergence to actuaries, i.e. how mortality differentials narrow with age and how this interacts with discounting of cashflows.
The sound of progress
A while back we discussed the important role existing licensed medications could play when applied to the diseases of aging. A comparable discussion can be had about existing non-drug interventions and treatments, such as, in this case the venerable ultrasound.
Model selection
When fitting a mortality model, analysts are faced with the decision of which risk factors to include or exclude. One way of doing this is to look for the improvement in an information criterion that balances the fit against the number of parameters. The bigger the improvement in the information criterion, the more strongly the model with the smaller value is preferred.
Constraints and the R language
This is the fourth and final blog on the use of constraints in the modelling and forecasting of mortality. The previous three blogs (here, here and here) demonstrated that there is no need to worry about which linear constraints to use: the fitted values of mortality and crucially their forecast values always come out the same.
From magical thinking to statistical thinking
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in the UK has recently added mortality projection to its syllabus, so this year I have been teaching the subject for the first time to students at Heriot-Watt University.
Matrix repair
When fitting a statistical model we want two things as a minimum:
Immune response
The resurgence of measles in Europe signals something of a confidence crisis in the area of vaccination, and not for the first time. Mass panics of this sort are not new, but the reach of modern hysteria is aided by technology.
One (more) time passcodes
Passwords seldom stand alone in modern applications, and for good reason. Perhaps they might be guessed or leak or otherwise be broken, so it is a bad idea to make them the only line of defence. This is why multi-factor authentication (MFA) is modern best practice.