Abstract
Recently, many researchers have been involved in finding deterministic equations which can accurately predict future event, based on chaotic theory, or fractal theory. The theory says that some events which seem very random but internally deterministic can be accurately predicted by fractal equations. In contrast to the conventional methods, such as AR model, MA, model, or ARIMA model, the fractal equation attempts to discover a deterministic order inherent in time series data set. In discovering deterministic order, researchers have found that neural networks are much more effective than the conventional statistical models. Even though prediction accuracy of the network can be different depending on the topological structure and modification of the algorithms, many researchers asserted that the neural network systems outperforms other systems, because of non-linear behaviour of the network models, mechanisms of massive parallel processing, generalization capability based on adaptive learning. However, recent survey shows that prediction accuracy of the forecasting models can be determined by the model structure and data structures. In the experiments based on actual economic data sets, it was found that the prediction accuracy of the neural network model is similar to the performance level of the conventional forecasting model. Especially, for the data set which is deterministically chaotic, the AR model, a conventional statistical model, was not significantly different from the MLP model, a neural network model. This result shows that the forecasting model. This result shows that the forecasting model a, pp.opriate to a prediction task should be selected based on characteristics of the time series data set. Analysis of the characteristics of the data set was performed by fractal analysis, measurement of Hurst index, and measurement of Lyapunov exponents. As a conclusion, a significant difference was not found in forecasting future events for the time series data which is deterministically chaotic, between a conventional forecasting model and a typical neural network model.
