MiniMe7

I will take a crack at this since I am actually studying it now.

A) Let's say your employer promise to pay you $60K per year now instead of their original promise to pay $50K, but this new $10K add'l benefit doesn't kick in until 2015 (i.e. they tell you there's a vesting period). What's happened is the employer has changed the existing DB plan that's already in place. Companies can "smooth" that $10K add'l amount over the vesting period. If the vesting period is 5 years, then after year 1, you'd have $8K of unrecognized past service cost.

B) This is another "smoothing" type deal. Actuarial assumptions can be related to things like the assumed plan return or the discount rate. If the plan had originally assumed that it would earn a 20% return, it was putting in less cash than another plan that had assumed an 8% return (since it assumed it could make up the unfunded difference over the long-term via market appreciation of its assets). Suddenly, they change their assumption and now only think they can earn a 15% return on their plan assets instead of 20%. That the dollar amount of that difference associated with 5% now becomes a loss and can also be smoothed over a period of time (see readings on Corridor Method and Faster Recognition Method). At any point during the "smoothing" period, there will be a portion of that 5% loss that's unrecognized.

I'm not sure about what book you're referring to regarding page 200.