Time-series forecasting using flexible neural tree model

Time-series forecasting is an important research and application area. Much effort has been devoted over the past several decades to develop and improve the time-series forecasting models. This paper introduces a new time-series forecasting model based on the flexible neural tree (FNT). The FNT model is generated initially as a flexible multi-layer feed-forward neural network and evolved using ail evolutionary procedure. Very often it is a difficult task to select the proper input variables or time-lags for constructing a time-series model. Our research demonstrates that the FNT model is capable of handing the task automatically. The performance and effectiveness of the proposed method are evaluated using time series prediction problems and compared with those of related methods. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.