Actuarial science applies mathematical and statistical methods to finance and insurance, particularly to the assessment of risk. Actuaries are professionals who are qualified in this field through highly competitive examinations and experience.

Actuarial science includes a number of interrelating disciplines, including probability and statistics, finance, and economics. Historically, actuarial science used deterministic models in the construction of tables and premiums. The science has gone through revolutionary changes during the last 30 years due to the proliferation of high speed computers and the synergy of stochastic actuarial models with modern financial theory .

In traditional life insurance, actuarial science focuses on the analysis of mortality, the production of life tables, and the application of compound interest to produce life insurance, annuities and endowment policies. Contempory life insurance programs have been extended to include credit and morgage insurance, key man insurance for small businesses, long term care insurance and medical savings accounts .

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TechCrunch

LinkedIn Rolls Out Enhanced Groups Features
Jason Kincaid Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:00:16 -0000
Last week, we wrote about LinkedIn's recent issues with its Groups - as part of a new platform rollout, a number of management features were apparently buggy, while others had been removed entirely. Tonight sees the release of a number of new features on the platform that should quell some of these concerns. Among the new features are a centralized hub page for every group, where group members can come together and converse with each other in one place. The release also introduces enhanced group and user management features, including a searchable roster.
Scribd Finally Starts A New Chapter With A Redesign
Jason Kincaid Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:52:04 -0000
Scribd, the popular document sharing hub, has finally rolled out a much-needed redesign. The site has long been hampered by a messy homepage that wasn't attractive for first-time visitors, displaying a list of its top features in lieu of a YouTube-esque stream of featured documents. The old design made it clear that Scribd worked well as a utility, but didn't make it attractive as a destination site. Now, the new site highlights a sampling of its top documents and includes a number of UX changes that Scribd hopes will remedy this issue.
The Best of Android: Final Challenge Winners Announced
Mark Hendrickson Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:34:29 -0000
Last May, Google announced the first set of winners in its two-part contest called Android Challenge, which is meant to kick-start the creation of 3rd-party applications for its nascent mobile platform by enticing developers with a total of $10 million in awards. Today, Google is releasing the names of its second set of winners, 10 of which receive $275,000 and 10 of which receive $100,000.
Ashton Kutcher Is Pretty Excited To Launch Blah Girls At TechCrunch50
Michael Arrington Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:17:03 -0000
TechCrunch50 is just a week and a half away. The list of presenting companies is kept strictly confidential until the day of the event to ensure maximum audience attention. But we're making one exception this year. Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg's Katalyst Media will be launching Blah Girls, one of his new interactive online video products, at TechCrunch50. Ashton recorded an intro video for Blah Girls letting us know how excited he is about all of the confidentiality and rehearsal requirements around the event.
Yahoo Shuts Down Mash, 0-4 On Social Networking
Michael Arrington Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:47:42 -0000
In an email to users today, Yahoo announced that its year old social network Yahoo Mash will be shutting down on September 29. This was Yahoo's fourth serious attempt at getting a foothold in social networking after Yahoo 360 and failed acquisition attempts of Facebook and Bebo.
Can We Predict The Outcome of The Presidential Election With Each Candidate’s Traffic Data?
Jason Kincaid Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:55:43 -0000
Can traffic to a Presidential Candidate's homepage be used to gauge who will win this year's election? Hitwise has published recent data on the traffic both American presidential candidates have seen in the last month (ending 8/23), and while the results don't seem to shed much light on the forthcoming election's outcome, they reveal a few interesting trends. Hitwise has ranked each state by two criteria: its contribution to each site's total traffic, and the the overall likelihood that a user in the state will visit the candidate's site (called the Representation index). If either metric is applicable to the election, it will be Representation Index, which indicates the candidate's popularity on a per-state basis and isn't affected by the state's population.

ENN Investing and Corporate Social Responsibility

Study Suggests Carbon Market Encourages Chopping Forests
The current carbon market actually encourages cutting down some of the world's biggest forests, which would unleash tons of climate-warming carbon into the atmosphere, a new study reported Monday.
Technology Companies Tout Greener Credentials, but Significant Improvements Are Distant
With energy costs high and environmental friendliness making for good public relations, more tech companies are touting ways they are "greening" data centers, which serve up Web pages, swap Internet traffic, and process and store business information.
Westinghouse Seals Mega China Nuclear Deal
U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric signed on Tuesday a multi-billion-dollar deal with Chinese partners to build four nuclear reactors in eastern China, finalising a pact agreed between Beijing and Washington seven months ago.

The Financial Page

James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility?
James Surowiecki Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market’s “ascent,” in particular . . .
James Surowiecki: Too many stakeholders can be a deal-breaker.
James Surowiecki Mon, 04 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In the second decade of the twentieth century, it was almost impossible to build an airplane in the United States. That was the result of a chaotic legal battle among the dozens of companies--including one owned by Orville Wright--that held patents on the various components that made a . . .
Rebecca Mead: Queen Claude's prayer book, at the Morgan Library.
Rebecca Mead Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:00:00 -0000
In May, a tiny, exquisite volume went on display at the Morgan Library & Museum: a prayer book made for Queen Claude of France, who was born in the penultimate year of the fifteenth century. Claude, a near-contemporary of Anne Boleyn, who served her at the French court as a . . .

NYT > Your Money

Your Money: Socially Responsible, With Egg on Its Face
Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:02:37 -0000
Many are wondering how one of the oldest practitioners in the field of socially responsible investing got mixed up with companies involved with alcohol, gambling and military contracting.
Economic View: Finding the Mess Behind the Mess
Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:50:22 -0000
The fundamental problem in the American economy is that, for years, people treated rising asset prices as a substitute for personal savings.
Fundamentally: Dividends Still Make a Difference
Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:50:49 -0000
When it comes to dividends, investors should look at time frames significantly longer than a single year.

The Economist: The World Bank and the IMF

Poverty:
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:35:37 -0000
The world is poorer than we thought, the World Bank discoversIN APRIL 2007 the World Bank announced that 986m people worldwide suffered from extreme poverty—the first time its count had dropped below 1 billion. On August 26th it had grim news to report. According to two of its leading researchers, Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, the “developing world is poorer than we thought”. The number of poor was almost 1.4 billion in 2005.This does not mean the plight of the poor had worsened—only that the plight is now better understood. The bank has improved its estimates of the cost of living around the world, thanks to a vast effort to compare the price of hundreds of products, from packaged rice to folding umbrellas, in 146 countries. In many poor countries the cost of living was steeper than previously thought, which meant more people fell short of the poverty line. ...
Who runs the world?:
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
The post-war global institutions have largely worked well. But rising countries and growing threats are challenging their pre-eminence THE powerful, like the victorious, do not just write history. They grab the seats at the top tables, from the United Nations Security Council to the boards of the big international economic and financial institutions. They collude behind closed doors. They decide who can join their cosy clubs and expect the rest of the world to obey the instructions they hand down. That is how many outsiders, not just in the poor world, will see the summit that takes place from July 7th to 9th of the G8, the closest the world has to an informal (ie, self-appointed) steering group. Leaders of seven of the world’s richest democracies, plus oil-and gas-fired Russia, gather this year in Toyako, on Hokkaido in northern Japan, to ruminate on climate change, rising food and energy prices, and the best way to combat global scourges from disease to nuclear proliferation. ...
International government:
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:02:45 -0000
Global institutions are an outdated muddle; the rise of Asia makes their reform a priority for the WestCLUBS are all too often full of people prattling on about things they no longer know about. On July 7th the leaders of the group that allegedly runs the world—the G7 democracies plus Russia—gather in Japan to review the world economy. But what is the point of their discussing the oil price without Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer? Or waffling about the dollar without China, which holds so many American Treasury bills? Or slapping sanctions on Robert Mugabe, with no African present? Or talking about global warming, AIDS or inflation without anybody from the emerging world? Cigar smoke and ignorance are in the air.The G8 is not the only global club that looks old and impotent (see article). The UN Security Council has told Iran to stop enriching uranium, without much effect. The nuclear non-proliferation regime is in tatters. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the fireman in previous financial crises, has been a bystander during the credit crunch. The World Trade Organisation’s Doha round is stuck. Of course, some bodies, such as the venerable Bank for International Settlements (see article), still do a fine job. But as global problems proliferate and information whips round the world ever faster, the organisational response looks ever shabbier, slower and feebler. The world’s governing bodies need to change. ...

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