A FCM-based deterministic forecasting model for fuzzy time series

The study of fuzzy time series has increasingly attracted much attention due to its salient capabilities of tackling uncertainty and vagueness inherent in the data collected. A variety of forecasting models including high-order models have been devoted to improving forecasting accuracy. However, the high-order forecasting approach is accompanied by the crucial problem of determining an appropriate order number. Consequently, such a deficiency was recently solved by Li and Cheng [S.-T. Li, Y.-C. Cheng, Deterministic Fuzzy time series model for forecasting enrollments, Computers and Mathematics with Applications 53 (2007) 1904–1920] using a deterministic forecasting method. In this paper, we propose a novel forecasting model to enhance forecasting functionality and allow processing of two-factor forecasting problems. In addition, this model applies fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering to deal with interval partitioning, which takes the nature of data points into account and produces unequal-sized intervals. Furthermore, in order to cope with the randomness of initially assigned membership degrees of FCM clustering, Monte Carlo simulations are used to justify the reliability of the proposed model. The superior accuracy of the proposed model is demonstrated by experiments comparing it to other existing models using real-world empirical data.     

A novel high-order weighted fuzzy time series model and its application in nonlinear time series prediction

Conventional time series forecast models can hardly develop the inherent rules of complex non-linear dynamic systems because the strict assumptions they need cannot always be met in reality, whereas fuzzy time series (FTS) techniques can be used even the records of times series have uncertainty and instability since they do not need strict assumptions. In previous study of FTS, the process of aggregating the past observations and assigning proper weights of fuzzy logical relationship groups are ignored, which may lead to poor forecasting accuracy since they are important aspects in time series prediction and analysis where determination of future trends depends only on past observations. In this paper, a novel high-order FTS model is constructed to make time series forecasting. Specifically, by applying the harmony search intelligence algorithm, the optimal lengths of intervals are tuned. Moreover, regularly increasing monotonic quantifiers are employed on fuzzy sets to obtain the weights of ordered weighted aggregation. Simultaneously, the weights of right-hand side of fuzzy logical relationship groups are explored to compensate the presence of bias in the prediction. In the part of empirical analysis, the developed model was applied to predict three well-known time series: numbers of enrollment of Alabama University, TAIEX and electricity load demand of New South Wales and the results obtained were compared with several counterparts, including some old and recently developed models. Experimental results demonstrate that the developed model cannot only achieve higher accuracy of prediction, but also capture the fuzzy features and characters.     

A high-order fuzzy time series forecasting model for internet stock trading

Recently, many fuzzy time series models have already been used to solve nonlinear and complexity issues. However, first-order fuzzy time series models have proven to be insufficient for solving these problems. For this reason, many researchers proposed high-order fuzzy time series models and focused on three main issues: fuzzification, fuzzy logical relationships, and defuzzification. This paper presents a novel high-order fuzzy time series model which overcomes the drawback mentioned above. First, it uses entropy-based partitioning to more accurately define the linguistic intervals in the fuzzification procedure. Second, it applies an artificial neural network to compute the complicated fuzzy logical relationships. Third, it uses the adaptive expectation model to adjust the forecasting during the defuzzification procedure. To evaluate the proposed model, we used datasets from both the Taiwanese stock index from 2000 to 2003 and from the student enrollment records of the University of Alabama. The results of our study show that the proposed model is able to obtain an accurate forecast without encountering conventional fuzzy time series issues.     

A distance-based fuzzy time series model for exchange rates forecasting

Fuzzy time series model has been successfully employed in predicting stock prices and foreign exchange rates. In this paper, we propose a new fuzzy time series model termed as distance-based fuzzy time series (DBFTS) to predict the exchange rate. Unlike the existing fuzzy time series models which require exact match of the fuzzy logic relationships (FLRs), the distance-based fuzzy time series model uses the distance between two FLRs in selecting prediction rules. To predict the exchange rate, a two factors distance-based fuzzy time series model is constructed. The first factor of the model is the exchange rate itself and the second factor comprises many candidate variables affecting the fluctuation of exchange rates. Using the exchange rate data released by the Central Bank of Taiwan, we conducted several experiments on exchange rate forecasting. The experiment results showed that the distance-based fuzzy time series outperformed the random walk model and the artificial neural network model in terms of mean square error.     

基于区间相似度的模糊时间序列预测算法

针对现有模糊时间序列预测算法无法适应预测中新关系出现的问题,提出了一种基于区间相似度的模糊时间序列预测（ISFTS）算法。首先,在模糊理论的基础上,采用基于均值的方法二次划分论域的区间,在论域区间上定义相应模糊集将历史数据模糊化;然后建立三阶模糊逻辑关系并引入逻辑关系相似度的计算公式,计算未来数据变化趋势值得到预测的模糊值;最后对预测模糊值去模糊化得到预测的确定值。由于ISFTS算法是预测数据变化趋势,克服了目前预测算法的逻辑关系的缺陷。仿真实验结果表明,与同类的预测算法相比,ISFTS算法预测误差更小,在误差相对比(MAPE)、绝对误差均值(MAE)和均方根误差(RMSE)三项指标上均优于同类的对比算法,因此ISFTS算法在时间序列预测中尤其是大数据量情况下的预测具有更强的适应性。     

A hybrid multi-order fuzzy time series for forecasting stock markets

This paper proposes a hybrid model based on multi-order fuzzy time series, which employs rough sets theory to mine fuzzy logical relationship from time series and an adaptive expectation model to adjust forecasting results, to improve forecasting accuracy. Two empirical stock markets (TAIEX and NASDAQ) are used as empirical databases to verify the forecasting performance of the proposed model, and two other methodologies, proposed earlier by Chen and Yu, are employed as comparison models. Besides, to compare with conventional statistic method, the partial autocorrelation function and autoregressive models are utilized to estimate the time lags periods within the databases. Based on comparison results, the proposed model can effectively improve the forecasting performance and outperforms the listing models. From the empirical study, the conventional statistic method and the proposed model both have revealed that the estimated time lags for the two empirical databases are one lagged period.     

A computational method of forecasting based on fuzzy time series

In this paper, a computational method of forecasting based on fuzzy time series have been developed to provide improved forecasting results to cope up the situation containing higher uncertainty due to large fluctuations in consecutive year's values in the time series data and having no visualization of trend or periodicity. The proposed model is of order three and uses a time variant difference parameter on current state to forecast the next state. The developed model has been tested on the historical student enrollments, University of Alabama to have comparison with the existing methods and has been implemented for forecasting of a crop production system of lahi crop, containing higher uncertainty. The suitability of the developed model has been examined in comparison with the other models to show its superiority.     

Effective intervals determined by information granules to improve forecasting in fuzzy time series

Partitioning the universe of discourse and determining effective intervals are critical for forecasting in fuzzy time series. Equal length intervals used in most existing literatures are convenient but subjective to partition the universe of discourse. In this paper, we study how to partition the universe of discourse into intervals with unequal length to improve forecasting quality. First, we calculate the prototypes of data using fuzzy clustering, then form some subsets according to the prototypes. An unequal length partitioning method is proposed. We show that these intervals carry well-defined semantics. To verify the suitability and effectiveness of the approach, we apply the proposed method to forecast enrollment of students of Alabama University and Germany’s DAX stock index monthly values. Empirical results show that the unequal length partitioning can greatly improve forecast accuracy. Further more, the proposed method is very robust and stable for forecasting in fuzzy time series.     

Constructing and applying an improved fuzzy time series model: Taking the tourism industry for example

This study develops an improved fuzzy time series models for forecasting short-term series data. The forecasts were obtained by comparing the proposed improved fuzzy time series, Hwang’s fuzzy time series, and heuristic fuzzy time series. The tourism from Taiwan to the United States was used to build the sample sets which were officially published annual data for the period of 1991–2001. The root mean square error and mean absolute percentage error are two criteria to evaluate the forecasting performance. Empirical results show that the proposed fuzzy time series and Hwang’s fuzzy time series are suitable for short-term predictions.     

An efficient time series forecasting model based on fuzzy time series

In this paper, we present a new model to handle four major issues of fuzzy time series forecasting, viz., determination of effective length of intervals, handling of fuzzy logical relationships (FLRs), determination of weight for each FLR, and defuzzification of fuzzified time series values. To resolve the problem associated with the determination of length of intervals, this study suggests a new time series data discretization technique. After generating the intervals, the historical time series data set is fuzzified based on fuzzy time series theory. Each fuzzified time series values are then used to create the FLRs. Most of the existing fuzzy time series models simply ignore the repeated FLRs without any proper justification. Since FLRs represent the patterns of historical events as well as reflect the possibility of appearances of these types of patterns in the future. If we simply discard the repeated FLRs, then there may be a chance of information lost. Therefore, in this model, it is recommended to consider the repeated FLRs during forecasting. It is also suggested to assign weights on the FLRs based on their severity rather than their patterns of occurrences. For this purpose, a new technique is incorporated in the model. This technique determines the weight for each FLR based on the index of the fuzzy set associated with the current state of the FLR. To handle these weighted FLRs and to obtain the forecasted results, this study proposes a new defuzzification technique. The proposed model is verified and validated with three different time series data sets. Empirical analyses signify that the proposed model have the robustness to handle one-factor time series data set very efficiently than the conventional fuzzy time series models. Experimental results show that the proposed model also outperforms over the conventional statistical models.     

A high order fuzzy time series forecasting model based on adaptive expectation and artificial neural networks

Many fuzzy time series approaches have been proposed in recent years. These methods include three main phases such as fuzzification, defining fuzzy relationships and, defuzzification. Aladag et al. [2] improved the forecasting accuracy by utilizing feed forward neural networks to determine fuzzy relationships in high order fuzzy time series. Another study for increasing forecasting accuracy was made by Cheng et al. [6]. In their study, they employ adaptive expectation model to adopt forecasts obtained from first order fuzzy time series forecasting model. In this study, we propose a novel high order fuzzy time series method in order to obtain more accurate forecasts. In the proposed method, fuzzy relationships are defined by feed forward neural networks and adaptive expectation model is used for adjusting forecasted values. Unlike the papers of Cheng et al. [6] and Liu et al. [14], forecast adjusting is done by using constraint optimization for weighted parameter. The proposed method is applied to the enrollments of the University of Alabama and the obtained forecasting results compared to those obtained from other approaches are available in the literature. As a result of comparison, it is clearly seen that the proposed method significantly increases the forecasting accuracy.     

Handling forecasting problems based on fuzzy time series model and model error learning

Classical fuzzy time series forecasts are comprised of three steps: fuzzification, identification of fuzzy relation, and defuzzification. In this paper, we propose a new approach and add an error learning step to improve forecasts. In the fuzzification step, a hybrid method, based on the fuzzy c-means clustering and the fuzzy Silhouette criterion, is employed to determine the optimal number of intervals, which avoids time-consuming iterations of the whole algorithm. In the defuzzification step, an optimization model is set up to explain the rule of defuzzification. In the model structure, an error term is assembled into the traditional model to express model error, which is predicted by linear fitting and abnormal errors processing. Learning of model errors and considering of data characteristics guarantee good interpretability and accuracy. The numerical results show that the proposed approach has superior forecast performance to existing methods.     

Fuzzy forecasting based on fuzzy time series

This article presents an improved method of fuzzy time series to forecast university enrollments. The historical enrollment data of the University of Alabama were first adopted by Song and Chissom (Song, Q. and Chissom, B. S. (1993). Forecasting enrollment with fuzzy time series-part I, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 54, 1–9; Song, Q. and Chissom, B. S. (1994). Forecasting enrollment with fuzzy time series-part II, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 54, 267–277) to illustrate the forecasting process of the fuzzy time series. Later, Chen proposed a simpler method. In this article, we show that our method is as simple as Chen's method but more accurate. In forecasting the enrollment of the University of Alabama, the root mean square percentage error (RMSPE) of our method is 3.1113% while the RMSPE of Chen's method is 4.0516%, which shows that our method is doing much better.     

一种新的模糊时间序列模型的预测方法

针对目前在模糊时间序列模型中论域划分及数据模糊化方法存在的问题,首先提出了基于模糊聚类算法(FCM)的具有可调参数的模糊时间序列论域的非等分划分方法;然后,在数据模糊化时通过距离客观地定义了模糊集,并利用最小标准误差(RMSE)确定最优的预测结果和聚类数;最后,通过 Alabama 大学注册人数的预测表明了所提出算法的有效性.     

Prediction of uncertain structural responses using fuzzy time series

Numerical methods for the prediction of uncertain structural responses with the aid of fuzzy time series are presented. Uncertain data, uncertain measured actions, and uncertain structural responses over time are considered as time series comprised of fuzzy data. Uncertain data are described by means of a new incremental fuzzy representation, which permits a complete and accurate estimation of uncertainty. The fuzzy time series are regarded as realizations of a fuzzy random process. Methods for identification and quantification of the underlying fuzzy random process are developed. The concepts of model-free and of model-based forecasting are addressed. These concepts enable the prediction of data in the form of optimal forecasts, fuzzy forecast intervals, and fuzzy random forecasts. The algorithms are demonstrated by way of practical examples.     

A clustering based forecasting algorithm for multivariable fuzzy time series using linear combinations of independent variables

There are two popular types of forecasting algorithms for fuzzy time series (FTS). One is based on intervals of universal sets of independent variables and the other is based on fuzzy clustering algorithms. Clustering based FTS algorithms are preferred since role and optimal length of intervals are not clearly understood. Therefore data of each variable are individually clustered which requires higher computational time. Fuzzy Logical Relationships (FLRs) are used in existing FTS algorithms to relate input and output data. High number of clusters and FLRs are required to establish precise input/output relations which incur high computational time. This article presents a forecasting algorithm based on fuzzy clustering (CFTS) which clusters vectors of input data instead of clustering data of each variable separately and uses linear combinations of the input variables instead of the FLRs. The cluster centers handle fuzziness and ambiguity of the data and the linear parts allow the algorithm to learn more from the available information. It is shown that CFTS outperforms existing FTS algorithms with considerably lower testing error and running time.     

Linguistic time series forecasting using fuzzy recurrent neural network

It is known that one of the most spread forecasting methods is the time series analysis. A weakness of traditional crisp time series forecasting methods is that they process only measurement based numerical information and cannot deal with the perception-based historical data represented by linguistic values. Application of a new class of time series, a fuzzy time series whose values are linguistic values, can overcome the mentioned weakness of traditional forecasting methods. In this paper we propose a fuzzy recurrent neural network (FRNN) based time series forecasting method for solving forecasting problems in which the data can be presented as perceptions and described by fuzzy numbers. The FRNN allows effectively handle fuzzy time series to apply human expertise throughout the forecasting procedure and demonstrates more adequate forecasting results. Recurrent links in FRNN also allow for simplification of the overall network structure (size) and forecasting procedure. Genetic algorithm-based procedure is used for training the FRNN. The effectiveness of the proposed fuzzy time series forecasting method is tested on the benchmark examples.     

一种新的基于模糊C均值算法的模糊时间序列确定性预测模型

模拟时间序列因为在处理数据采集中固有的不确定性和含糊性方面的显著能力而得到了越来越多的的关注,已经有许多模型致力于改进预测准确性和减少预测的计算开销,然而对于预测不确定性的控制、有效的分区间隔和对于不同的分区间隔达到一致的预测准确性方面研究较少。针对现有预测模型的不足,本文提出了一种新的预测模型,新模型增强了预测的性能并允许处理两因子预测问题。在新模型中,应用模糊均值算法来处理模糊时间序列的区间划分,划分时考虑了数据点的性质,产生不等大小的区间。最后在仿真实验中采用真实的观察数据,仿真实验结果表明本文提出的预测模型在预测准确性方面要优于现有的其他预测模型。     

模糊时间序列建模及股票市场多步预测

首先应用模糊聚类方法将数据分类,以相邻两个聚类中心的中点作为子区间的分界点来划分论域,并以此将时间序列模糊化为模糊时间序列;其次根据证券市场主要量价指标建立了具有多个前件的高阶模糊关系;最后将该模型用于上证股票综合指数和深证股票成分指数的多步预测和涨跌趋势预测。与典型模糊时间序列模型比较,涨跌趋势预测准确率有较大提高,多步预测结果表明模型具有较好的泛化能力。     

A new linguistic out-sample approach of fuzzy time series for daily forecasting of Malaysian electricity load demand

The fuzzy logical relationships and the midpoints of interval have been used to determine the numerical in-out-samples forecast in the fuzzy time series modeling. However, the absolute percentage error is still yet significantly improved. This can be done where the linguistics time series values should be forecasted in the beginning before the numerical forecasted values obtained. This paper introduces the new approach in determining the linguistic out-sample forecast by using the index numbers of linguistics approach. Moreover, the weights of fuzzy logical relationships are also suggested to compensate the presence of bias in the forecasting. The daily load data from National Electricity Board (TNB) of Malaysia is used as an empirical study and the reliability of the proposed approach is compared with the approach proposed by Yu. The result indicates that the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the proposed approach is smaller than that as proposed by Yu. By using this approach the linguistics time series forecasting and the numerical time series forecasting can be resolved.