Excerpt from Transactions of the Faculty of Actuaries, 1901-1903, Vol. 1 I think it is worthy of note how rapidly our numbers have increased of late years, and especially since the introduction of the Text-book of the Institute of Actuaries, which has done so much to assist the actuarial student, and to give precision and definite. Ness to his course of instruction. At 3lst December 1870 the membership of the Faculty, including Fellows and Associates, numbered 62; ten years later it had increased to 79 by the end of 1890 it had further increased to 109; and now, as already stated, the number is no less than 162. For the reason already referred to, the number of Associates does not greatly increase. We have now only 14, and in 1870 we had 12. As arule, gentlemen having passed their examinations remain Associates only during the short probationary period prescribed by the rules, and then pass on to the grade of Fellows. By our Constitution gentlemen who are pursuing their studies with a view to examination require to be enrolled as students of the Faculty. This year's list contains the names of no fewer than 174 students in various stages of progress. Of these, 70 have only to pass the final examination in order to be admitted Fellows 52 have two examinations to undergo; and the like number have to pass through the whole series of three examina tions. It is true that a certain number of these students give little promise of finishing their course of study and qualifying themselves for membership. About ten per cent. Of the whole have been on our roll for ten years and upwards; but as an annual fee is exacted for continued enrolment, we may take it that in the great majority of cases the students are still preparing themselves for examination, and we may hope that the bulk of them will in due time come in to Associateship and Fellowship. So much for our history and for our present position in point of numbers. We are a large body, all of us more or less thoroughly versed in Actuarial Science, and most of us presumably learned in its latest developments. And now as to our outlook for the future. Are we to continue as a separate body, doing the work in Scotland which we have hitherto been carrying on, and under taking new functions as necessity or opportunity presents them to us, or are we to look forward to becoming part of a wider organisation? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Vols. for 1898-1968 include a directory of publishers.

A foundational work on historical and social studies of quantification What accounts for the prestige of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is desirable in social investigation as a result of its successes in science. Trust in Numbers questions whether such success in the study of stars, molecules, or cells should be an attractive model for research on human societies, and examines why the natural sciences are highly quantitative in the first place. Theodore Porter argues that a better understanding of the attractions of quantification in business, government, and social research brings a fresh perspective to its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Quantitative rigor is not inherent in science but arises from political and social pressures, and objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts. In a new preface, the author sheds light on the current infatuation with quantitative methods, particularly at the intersection of science and bureaucracy.

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A comprehensive account of economic size distributions around the world and throughout the years In the course of the past 100 years, economists and applied statisticians have developed a remarkably diverse variety of income distribution models, yet no single resource convincingly accounts for all of these models, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, similarities and differences. Statistical Size Distributions in Economics and Actuarial Sciences is the first collection to systematically investigate a wide variety of parametric models that deal with income, wealth, and related notions. Christian Kleiber and Samuel Kotz survey, compliment, compare, and unify all of the disparate models of income distribution, highlighting at times a lack of coordination between them that can result in unnecessary duplication. Considering models from eight languages and all continents, the authors discuss the social and economic implications of each as well as distributions of size of loss in actuarial applications. Specific models covered include: Pareto distributions Lognormal distributions Gamma-type size distributions Beta-type size distributions Miscellaneous size distributions Three appendices provide brief biographies of some of the leading players along with the basic properties of each of the distributions. Actuaries, economists, market researchers, social scientists, and physicists interested in econophysics will find Statistical Size Distributions in Economics and Actuarial Sciences to be a truly one-of-a-kind addition to the professional literature.

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