Title: A new improved forecasting method integrated fuzzy time series with the exponential smoothing method

Authors: Peng Ge; Jun Wang; Peiyu Ren; Huafeng Gao; Yuyan Luo

Addresses: Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China ' Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China ' Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China ' Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China ' Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

Abstract: This paper presents a new method of integrated fuzzy time series with the exponential smoothing method to forecast university enrolments. The data of historical enrolments of the University of Alabama shown in Liu et al. (2011) are adopted to illustrate the forecasting process of the proposed method. A comparison has been made with five previous fuzzy time series models. Meanwhile, the mean squared error has also been calculated as the evaluation criterion to illustrate the performance of the proposed method. The empirical analysis shows that the proposed model reflects the fluctuations in fuzzy time series better and provides better overall forecasting results than the five listed previous models.

Keywords: enrolment forecasting; fuzzy time series; fuzzy logical relations; exponential smoothing; university enrolments; higher education; forecasting accuracy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2013.054030

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2013 Vol.51 No.3/4, pp.206 - 221

Published online: 28 Feb 2014 *

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