Time series forecasting using evolutionary neural nets implemented in a volunteer computing system

• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Author: J.J. Merelo,P. García‐Fernández,E. Parras‐Gutiérrez,V.M. Rivas,M.G. Arenas
• Date: 01 April 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/isaf.1409

DOI: 10.1002/isaf.1409

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Time series forecasting using evolutionary neural nets

implemented in a volunteer computing system

V.M. Rivas1,4 E. Parras-Gutiérrez1J.J.Merelo2,4 M.G. Arenas2,4 P. García-Fernández3,4

1Dept of Computer Sciences, Univ.of Jaén,

Campus Las Lagunillas s/nJaén, 23071, Spain

2Dept. of Computers, Architecture and

Technology,Univ.of Granada, C/ Periodista

Daniel Saucedo s/n18071, Granada, Spain

3Dept. of Electronics and Computer

Technology,Univ.of Granada, C/Periodista

Daniel Saucedo s/nGranada, 18071, Spain

4GeNeuraTeamhttp://geneura.wordpress.com,

Correspondence

V.M. Rivas, Dept of Computer Sciences, Univ.of

Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas s/n,23071, Jaén,

SPAIN.

Email: vrivas@ujaen.es

Fundinginformation

Ministerio Español de Economía y

Competitividad, Grant/AwardNumber:

TIN2014-56494-C4-3-P, PRY142/14

Summary

jsEvRBF is a time-series forecasting method based on genetic algorithm and neural nets. Written

in JavaScriptlanguage, can be executed in most web browsers. Consequently,everybody can par-

ticipatein the experiments, and scientists can take advantage of nowadaysavailable browsers and

devices as computation environments.This is also a great challenge as the language support and

performance varies from one browser to another.In this paper, jsEvRBF has been tested in a vol-

unteer computing experiment,and also in a single-browser one. Both experiments are related to

forecasting currencies exchange,and the results show the viability of the proposal.

KEYWORDS

evolutionarycomputation, fintech, radial basis function neural networks, time-series forecasting,

Web-based programming,volunteer computation

1INTRODUCTION

Modern web browsers such as Firefox,Chrome, Edge, Safari and many

others differ from their predecessors in that they can do more than

render HTML code, show pictures and allow to navigate using links.

In fact, as far as browsers allow the executionsof third-part programs

(applets) included in the pages they download, they have turned into

wider frameworks in which multi-platform applications can be exe-

cuted. Furthermore, new versions can natively decode and execute

code that previously needed to be handled by a plug-in. An example

of this is the Flash Player experience, since its usage has drastically

reduced by HTML now that browsers are able to do a similar work

(Wonokur, 2011). Actually, most of the programsinterpreted and exe-

cutedby browsers themselves are written in JavaScript, a programming

language that was initially introduced to build interactive applications

with web pages more similar to the apps available in desktop environ-

ments (Rauschmayer, 2014). The web, as we currently use it, would not

be the same without the capability that JavaScriptgives to the browser

to make calculus, to interact with the user, or to dynamically retrieve

data from servers without reloading the whole page, as it is done with

AJAX(Powell,2008).

Briefly,the history of JavaScript starts in the 1990s: the proprietary

web browser Netscape Navigatorhad been created and was dominant,

and in 1995, Brendan Eich was hired by Netscape company to design

and implement a new language. At the same time, Netscape collabo-

rated with Sun company to include Java (its more static programming

language) in Netscape Navigator. For this reason, it was questioned

the needed of two programming languages: Java and a scripting lan-

guage. Finally, they decided that the new scripting language had to

make more accessible to non-Java programmers and web designers

supportingJava applets (Champeon, 2008). In May 1995, Eich designed

a prototype in 10 days and was named first Mocha, coined by the

founder of Netscape Marc Andreessen, then LiveScript and finally, in

December 1995, JavaScript (Brendan, 2010), not because of the Java

programming language, but to support Sun Microsystems. JavaScript

was standardized in 1997 by the European Computer Manufactur-

er’s Association, or ECMA. According to the ECMA-262 standard, its

real name is ECMAScript, but everyone calls the language JavaScript

(Flanagan, 2006).

JavaScript can be described as a general-purpose, object-based,

event-driven language. Although it was initially designed to be used

only in the browser, independent implementations running on the

server were soon released; nowadays it is used to write programs for

both the client (i.e., the browser) and the server thanks to frameworks

like node.js (Rauch, 2012). Adding JavaScript programs to web pages

is simple: the code is inserted in the HTML code in plain text; then,

it is downloaded by the browser that, finally,interprets and executes

it. For safety reasons, any web browser allows its users to change

the preferences in order to disable the execution of any JavaScript

code; nevertheless, this is rarely done nowadays. Even more, most

Intell Sys Acc Fin Mgmt. 2017;24:87–95. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/isaf Copyright© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 87