Quantitative Technology Forecasting: a Review of Trend Extrapolation Methods

Electrical utilities depend on short-term demand forecasting to proactively adjust production and distribution in anticipation of major variations. This systematic review analyzes 240 works published in scholarly journals between 2000 and 2019 that focus on applying Artificial Intelligence (AI), statistical, and hybrid models to short-term load forecasting (STLF). This work represents the most comprehensive review of works on this subject to date. A complete analysis of the l...

This paper aims to explore the application of machine learning in forecasting Chinese macroeconomic variables. Specifically, it employs various machine learning models to predict the quarterly real GDP growth of China, and analyzes the factors contributing to the performance differences among these models. Our findings indicate that the average forecast errors of machine learning models are generally lower than those of traditional econometric models or expert forecasts, part...

Macroeconomic data are crucial for monitoring countries' performance and driving policy. However, traditional data acquisition processes are slow, subject to delays, and performed at a low frequency. We address this 'ragged-edge' problem with a two-step framework. The first step is a supervised learning model predicting observed low-frequency figures. We propose a neural-network-based nowcasting model that exploits mixed-frequency, high-dimensional data. The second step uses ...

Experience curves are widely used to predict the cost benefits of increasing the deployment of a technology. But how good are such forecasts? Can one predict their accuracy a priori? In this paper we answer these questions by developing a method to make distributional forecasts for experience curves. We test our method using a dataset with proxies for cost and experience for 51 products and technologies and show that it works reasonably well. The framework that we develop hel...

It is widely known that Google Trends have become one of the most popular free tools used by forecasters both in academics and in the private and public sectors. There are many papers, from several different fields, concluding that Google Trends improve forecasts' accuracy. However, what seems to be widely unknown, is that each sample of Google search data is different from the other, even if you set the same search term, data and location. This means that it is possible to f...

While machine learning (ML) has made significant contributions to the biopharmaceutical field, its applications are still in the early stages in terms of providing direct support for quality-by-design based development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, hindering the enormous potential for bioprocesses automation from their development to manufacturing. However, the adoption of ML-based models instead of conventional multivariate data analysis methods is significantly i...

The fashion industry is one of the most active and competitive markets in the world, manufacturing millions of products and reaching large audiences every year. A plethora of business processes are involved in this large-scale industry, but due to the generally short life-cycle of clothing items, supply-chain management and retailing strategies are crucial for good market performance. Correctly understanding the wants and needs of clients, managing logistic issues and marketi...

Nowcasting can play a key role in giving policymakers timelier insight to data published with a significant time lag, such as final GDP figures. Currently, there are a plethora of methodologies and approaches for practitioners to choose from. However, there lacks a comprehensive comparison of these disparate approaches in terms of predictive performance and characteristics. This paper addresses that deficiency by examining the performance of 12 different methodologies in nowc...

Predictions and forecasts of machine learning models should take the form of probability distributions, aiming to increase the quantity of information communicated to end users. Although applications of probabilistic prediction and forecasting with machine learning models in academia and industry are becoming more frequent, related concepts and methods have not been formalized and structured under a holistic view of the entire field. Here, we review the topic of predictive un...

Technological change and innovation are vitally important, especially for high-tech companies. However, factors influencing their future research and development (R&D) trends are both complicated and various, leading it a quite difficult task to make technology tracing for high-tech companies. To this end, in this paper, we develop a novel data-driven solution, i.e., Deep Technology Forecasting (DTF) framework, to automatically find the most possible technology directions cus...