Customer Information Disclosure and Analyst Forecasts : Empirical Evidence from Analysts' Perspective

Based on the company's disclosure of key customer information,the impact of corporate customer concentration on analyst forecast was studied,and we further studied the impact of detailed customer names on analyst forecasts. It is found that:(i) customer concentration significantly affects the accuracy of analyst forecasts. The higher the customer concentration is,the lower the accuracy of analyst forecasts is;(ii) Voluntary disclosure of customer names can provide incremental information to analysts and mitigate the negative impact of customer concentration on the accuracy of analyst forests;(iii) further research has found that the incremental information brought by the state-owned enterprises' disclosure of the customer names to analysts is more obvious; disclosure of customer names by companies with high environmental uncertainty is more likely to be of concern to analysts; and star analysts have a higher ability to interpret customer names than non-star analysts.

Theoretical explanations to security analysts＇ forecast bias

As the representative of mature investors, security analysts＇ recommendations are guidance for most investors, However, a great deal of studies nearly draws the consistent conclusion, i.e. they are not as smart as we imagine, or the market doesn＇t trust their recommendations so much. The existence of optimistic bias in their recommendations has been supported by empirical data widely. Hence these make many papers to explore the reasons and try to give theoretical explanations. Based on prior researches, this paper mainly compares two theoretical models both based on mathematical methods.

Earnings disaggregation and analysts＇ forecasts

Accounting concepts dictate that separately disclosed components should contain separate useful information. This paper examines the relations between income statement components and analysts＇ earnings forecasts and forecast errors. Regressions explaining earnings forecasts using earnings components provide a better fit than regression using just aggregate income to explain forecasts. We interpret this as consistent with the hypothesis that analysts use incremental information in components not available in aggregate income. However, additional tests based on predictability of forecast errors indicate that analysts do not incorporate all information available in components into earnings forecasts. In addition, this inefficiency appears to increase at longer forecast horizons.

New European Union＇s Requirements and IFRS Practice Statement ＂Management Commentary＂： Does MD＆A Disclosure Quality Affect Analysts＇ Forecasts？

The Management Discussion and Analysis （MD＆A） is a mandatory document under the European Union＇s （EU） law. In 2003, the EU issued Directive 2003/51/EC, which broadened the information that firms have to provide in their MD＆A, and in 2010 the International Accounting Standards Board （IASB） issued the International Financial Reporting Standards （IFRS） Practice Statement ＂Management Commentary＂, a non-binding guidance for the presentation of this document. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between MD＆A disclosure quality and properties of analysts＇ forecasts. In fact, although most studies found that financial analysts mainly refer to financial statement data in forecasting earnings, there are few researches highlighting the importance of MD＆A disclosures for financial analysts. On this basis, Ramnath, Rock, and Shane （2008） called for researches in order to better understand the relationship between the information really used by analysts and their forecasts. To assess the quality of MD＆A disclosures, we developed a multidimensional measure on the basis of the EU requirements and the IFRS Practice Statement, and then we regressed this variable on both forecast accuracy and dispersion. The findings show that our measure of MD＆A disclosure quality is significantly and positively related to forecast accuracy. We conducted other analyses in order to better understand the previous relationship and we found that, if we analyze the different information contained in the MD＆A statement, financial analysts consider useful accounting and financial data in forecasting earnings. These results enhance our understanding of the role of MD＆A disclosures in the wide set of information that firms provide to financial statement users.

Non-crossing Quantile Regression Neural Network as a Calibration Tool for Ensemble Weather Forecasts

Despite the maturity of ensemble numerical weather prediction(NWP),the resulting forecasts are still,more often than not,under-dispersed.As such,forecast calibration tools have become popular.Among those tools,quantile regression(QR)is highly competitive in terms of both flexibility and predictive performance.Nevertheless,a long-standing problem of QR is quantile crossing,which greatly limits the interpretability of QR-calibrated forecasts.On this point,this study proposes a non-crossing quantile regression neural network(NCQRNN),for calibrating ensemble NWP forecasts into a set of reliable quantile forecasts without crossing.The overarching design principle of NCQRNN is to add on top of the conventional QRNN structure another hidden layer,which imposes a non-decreasing mapping between the combined output from nodes of the last hidden layer to the nodes of the output layer,through a triangular weight matrix with positive entries.The empirical part of the work considers a solar irradiance case study,in which four years of ensemble irradiance forecasts at seven locations,issued by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts,are calibrated via NCQRNN,as well as via an eclectic mix of benchmarking models,ranging from the naïve climatology to the state-of-the-art deep-learning and other non-crossing models.Formal and stringent forecast verification suggests that the forecasts post-processed via NCQRNN attain the maximum sharpness subject to calibration,amongst all competitors.Furthermore,the proposed conception to resolve quantile crossing is remarkably simple yet general,and thus has broad applicability as it can be integrated with many shallow-and deep-learning-based neural networks.

A Deep Learning Approach for Forecasting Thunderstorm Gusts in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

Thunderstorm gusts are a common form of severe convective weather in the warm season in North China,and it is of great importance to correctly forecast them.At present,the forecasting of thunderstorm gusts is mainly based on traditional subjective methods,which fails to achieve high-resolution and high-frequency gridded forecasts based on multiple observation sources.In this paper,we propose a deep learning method called Thunderstorm Gusts TransU-net(TGTransUnet)to forecast thunderstorm gusts in North China based on multi-source gridded product data from the Institute of Urban Meteorology(IUM)with a lead time of 1 to 6 h.To determine the specific range of thunderstorm gusts,we combine three meteorological variables:radar reflectivity factor,lightning location,and 1-h maximum instantaneous wind speed from automatic weather stations(AWSs),and obtain a reasonable ground truth of thunderstorm gusts.Then,we transform the forecasting problem into an image-to-image problem in deep learning under the TG-TransUnet architecture,which is based on convolutional neural networks and a transformer.The analysis and forecast data of the enriched multi-source gridded comprehensive forecasting system for the period 2021–23 are then used as training,validation,and testing datasets.Finally,the performance of TG-TransUnet is compared with other methods.The results show that TG-TransUnet has the best prediction results at 1–6 h.The IUM is currently using this model to support the forecasting of thunderstorm gusts in North China.

Enhancing Deep Learning Soil Moisture Forecasting Models by Integrating Physics-based Models

Accurate soil moisture(SM)prediction is critical for understanding hydrological processes.Physics-based(PB)models exhibit large uncertainties in SM predictions arising from uncertain parameterizations and insufficient representation of land-surface processes.In addition to PB models,deep learning(DL)models have been widely used in SM predictions recently.However,few pure DL models have notably high success rates due to lacking physical information.Thus,we developed hybrid models to effectively integrate the outputs of PB models into DL models to improve SM predictions.To this end,we first developed a hybrid model based on the attention mechanism to take advantage of PB models at each forecast time scale(attention model).We further built an ensemble model that combined the advantages of different hybrid schemes(ensemble model).We utilized SM forecasts from the Global Forecast System to enhance the convolutional long short-term memory(ConvLSTM)model for 1–16 days of SM predictions.The performances of the proposed hybrid models were investigated and compared with two existing hybrid models.The results showed that the attention model could leverage benefits of PB models and achieved the best predictability of drought events among the different hybrid models.Moreover,the ensemble model performed best among all hybrid models at all forecast time scales and different soil conditions.It is highlighted that the ensemble model outperformed the pure DL model over 79.5%of in situ stations for 16-day predictions.These findings suggest that our proposed hybrid models can adequately exploit the benefits of PB model outputs to aid DL models in making SM predictions.

Seasonal Characteristics of Forecasting Uncertainties in Surface PM_(2.5)Concentration Associated with Forecast Lead Time over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

Forecasting uncertainties among meteorological fields have long been recognized as the main limitation on the accuracy and predictability of air quality forecasts.However,the particular impact of meteorological forecasting uncertainties on air quality forecasts specific to different seasons is still not well known.In this study,a series of forecasts with different forecast lead times for January,April,July,and October of 2018 are conducted over the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei(BTH)region and the impacts of meteorological forecasting uncertainties on surface PM_(2.5)concentration forecasts with each lead time are investigated.With increased lead time,the forecasted PM_(2.5)concentrations significantly change and demonstrate obvious seasonal variations.In general,the forecasting uncertainties in monthly mean surface PM_(2.5)concentrations in the BTH region due to lead time are the largest(80%)in spring,followed by autumn(~50%),summer(~40%),and winter(20%).In winter,the forecasting uncertainties in total surface PM_(2.5)mass due to lead time are mainly due to the uncertainties in PBL heights and hence the PBL mixing of anthropogenic primary particles.In spring,the forecasting uncertainties are mainly from the impacts of lead time on lower-tropospheric northwesterly winds,thereby further enhancing the condensation production of anthropogenic secondary particles by the long-range transport of natural dust.In summer,the forecasting uncertainties result mainly from the decrease in dry and wet deposition rates,which are associated with the reduction of near-surface wind speed and precipitation rate.In autumn,the forecasting uncertainties arise mainly from the change in the transport of remote natural dust and anthropogenic particles,which is associated with changes in the large-scale circulation.

Promising Results Predict Role for Artificial Intelligence in Weather Forecasting

Artificial intelligence(AI)has already demonstrated its proficiency at difficult scientific tasks like predicting how proteins will fold and identifying new astronomical objects in masses of observational data[1].Now,recent results suggest that AI also excels at weather forecasting.For global predictions,GraphCast,an AI system developed by Google subsidiary DeepMind(London,UK),outperforms the state-of-the-art model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts(ECMWF),providing more accurate projections of variables such as temperature and humidity 90%of the time[2,3].Other AI systems,including Pangu-Weather from the Chinese tech company Huawei(Shenzhen,China)[4],can also match or beat traditional global forecasting models.

Scientific Advances and Weather Services of the China Meteorological Administration’s National Forecasting Systems during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Since the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics was the first Winter Olympics in history held in continental winter monsoon climate conditions across complex terrain areas,there is a deficiency of relevant research,operational techniques,and experience.This made providing meteorological services for this event particularly challenging.The China Meteorological Administration(CMA)Earth System Modeling and Prediction Centre,achieved breakthroughs in research on short-and medium-term deterministic and ensemble numerical predictions.Several key technologies crucial for precise winter weather services during the Winter Olympics were developed.A comprehensive framework,known as the Operational System for High-Precision Weather Forecasting for the Winter Olympics,was established.Some of these advancements represent the highest level of capabilities currently available in China.The meteorological service provided to the Beijing 2022 Games also exceeded previous Winter Olympic Games in both variety and quality.This included achievements such as the“100-meter level,minute level”downscaled spatiotemporal resolution and forecasts spanning 1 to 15 days.Around 30 new technologies and over 60 kinds of products that align with the requirements of the Winter Olympics Organizing Committee were developed,and many of these techniques have since been integrated into the CMA’s operational national forecasting systems.These accomplishments were facilitated by a dedicated weather forecasting and research initiative,in conjunction with the preexisting real-time operational forecasting systems of the CMA.This program represents one of the five subprograms of the WMO’s high-impact weather forecasting demonstration project(SMART2022),and continues to play an important role in their Regional Association(RA)II Research Development Project(Hangzhou RDP).Therefore,the research accomplishments and meteorological service experiences from this program will be carried forward into forthcoming highimpact weather forecasting activities.This article provides an overview and assessment of this program and the operational national forecasting systems.

Comparison among the UECM Model, and the Composite Model in Forecasting Malaysian Imports

For more than a century, forecasting models have been crucial in a variety of fields. Models can offer the most accurate forecasting outcomes if error terms are normally distributed. Finding a good statistical model for time series predicting imports in Malaysia is the main target of this study. The decision made during this study mostly addresses the unrestricted error correction model (UECM), and composite model (Combined regression—ARIMA). The imports of Malaysia from the first quarter of 1991 to the third quarter of 2022 are employed in this study’s quarterly time series data. The forecasting outcomes of the current study demonstrated that the composite model offered more probabilistic data, which improved forecasting the volume of Malaysia’s imports. The composite model, and the UECM model in this study are linear models based on responses to Malaysia’s imports. Future studies might compare the performance of linear and nonlinear models in forecasting.

Better use of experience from other reservoirs for accurate production forecasting by learn-to-learn method

To assess whether a development strategy will be profitable enough,production forecasting is a crucial and difficult step in the process.The development history of other reservoirs in the same class tends to be studied to make predictions accurate.However,the permeability field,well patterns,and development regime must all be similar for two reservoirs to be considered in the same class.This results in very few available experiences from other reservoirs even though there is a lot of historical information on numerous reservoirs because it is difficult to find such similar reservoirs.This paper proposes a learn-to-learn method,which can better utilize a vast amount of historical data from various reservoirs.Intuitively,the proposed method first learns how to learn samples before directly learning rules in samples.Technically,by utilizing gradients from networks with independent parameters and copied structure in each class of reservoirs,the proposed network obtains the optimal shared initial parameters which are regarded as transferable information across different classes.Based on that,the network is able to predict future production indices for the target reservoir by only training with very limited samples collected from reservoirs in the same class.Two cases further demonstrate its superiority in accuracy to other widely-used network methods.

Longitudinal dependence of the forecast accuracy of the ionospheric total electron content in the equatorial zone

The longitudinal dependence of the behavior of ionospheric parameters has been the subject of a number of works where significant variations are discovered.This also applies to the prediction of the ionospheric total electron content(TEC),which neural network methods have recently been widely used.However,the results are mainly presented for a limited set of meridians.This paper examines the longitudinal dependence of the TEC forecast accuracy in the equatorial zone.In this case,the methods are used that provided the best accuracy on three meridians:European(30°E),Southeastern(110°E)and American(75°W).Results for the stations considered are analyzed as a function of longitude using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Global Ionosphere Map(JPL GIM)for 2015.These results are for 2 h ahead and 24 h ahead forecast.It was found that in this case,based on the metric values,three groups of architectures can be distinguished.The first group included long short-term memory(LSTM),gated recurrent unit(GRU),and temporal convolutional networks(TCN)models as a part of unidirectional deep learning models;the second group is based on the recurrent models from the first group,which were supplemented with a bidirectional algorithm,increasing the TEC forecasting accuracy by 2-3 times.The third group,which includes the bidirectional TCN architecture(BiTCN),provided the highest accuracy.For this architecture,according to data obtained for 9 equatorial stations,practical independence of the TEC prediction accuracy from longitude was observed under the following metrics(Mean Absolute Error MAE,Root Mean Square Error RMSE,Mean Absolute Percentage Error MAPE):MAE(2 h)is 0.2 TECU approximately;MAE(24 h)is 0.4 TECU approximately;RMSE(2 h)is less than 0.5 TECU except Niue station(RMSE(2 h)is 1 TECU approximately);RMSE(24 h)is in the range of 1.0-1.7 TECU;MAPE(2 h)<1%except Darwin station,MAPE(24 h)<2%.This result was confirmed by data from additional 5 stations that formed latitudinal chains in the equatorial part of the three meridians.The complete correspondence of the observational and predicted TEC values is illustrated using several stations for disturbed conditions on December 19-22,2015,which included the strongest magnetic storm in the second half of the year(min Dst=-155 nT).

Generalized load graphical forecasting method based on modal decomposition

In a“low-carbon”context,the power load is affected by the coupling of multiple factors,which gradually evolves from the traditional“pure load”to the generalized load with the dual characteristics of“load+power supply.”Traditional time-series forecasting methods are no longer suitable owing to the complexity and uncertainty associated with generalized loads.From the perspective of image processing,this study proposes a graphical short-term prediction method for generalized loads based on modal decomposition.First,the datasets are normalized and feature-filtered by comparing the results of Xtreme gradient boosting,gradient boosted decision tree,and random forest algorithms.Subsequently,the generalized load data are decomposed into three sets of modalities by modal decomposition,and red,green,and blue(RGB)images are generated using them as the pixel values of the R,G,and B channels.The generated images are diversified,and an optimized DenseNet neural network was used for training and prediction.Finally,the base load,wind power,and photovoltaic power generation data are selected,and the characteristic curves of the generalized load scenarios under different permeabilities of wind power and photovoltaic power generation are obtained using the density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise algorithm.Based on the proposed graphical forecasting method,the feasibility of the generalized load graphical forecasting method is verified by comparing it with the traditional time-series forecasting method.

CALTM:A Context-Aware Long-Term Time-Series Forecasting Model

Time series data plays a crucial role in intelligent transportation systems.Traffic flow forecasting represents a precise estimation of future traffic flow within a specific region and time interval.Existing approaches,including sequence periodic,regression,and deep learning models,have shown promising results in short-term series forecasting.However,forecasting scenarios specifically focused on holiday traffic flow present unique challenges,such as distinct traffic patterns during vacations and the increased demand for long-term forecastings.Consequently,the effectiveness of existing methods diminishes in such scenarios.Therefore,we propose a novel longterm forecasting model based on scene matching and embedding fusion representation to forecast long-term holiday traffic flow.Our model comprises three components:the similar scene matching module,responsible for extracting Similar Scene Features;the long-short term representation fusion module,which integrates scenario embeddings;and a simple fully connected layer at the head for making the final forecasting.Experimental results on real datasets demonstrate that our model outperforms other methods,particularly in medium and long-term forecasting scenarios.

The Forecast Skills and Predictability Sources of Marine Heatwaves in the NUIST-CFS1.0 Hindcasts

Using monthly observations and ensemble hindcasts of the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology Climate Forecast System(NUIST-CFS1.0) for the period 1983–2020, this study investigates the forecast skill of marine heatwaves(MHWs) over the globe and the predictability sources of the MHWs over the tropical oceans. The MHW forecasts are demonstrated to be skillful on seasonal-annual time scales, particularly in tropical oceans. The forecast skill of the MHWs over the tropical Pacific Ocean(TPO) remains high at lead times of 1–24 months, indicating a forecast better than random chance for up to two years. The forecast skill is subject to the spring predictability barrier of El Nino-Southern Oscillation(ENSO). The forecast skills for the MHWs over the tropical Indian Ocean(TIO), tropical Atlantic Ocean(TAO), and tropical Northwest Pacific(NWP) are lower than that in the TPO. A reliable forecast at lead times of up to two years is shown over the TIO, while a shorter reliable forecast window(less than 17 months) occurs for the TAO and NWP.Additionally, the forecast skills for the TIO, TAO, and NWP are seasonally dependent. Higher skills for the TIO and TAO appear in boreal spring, while a greater skill for the NWP emerges in late summer-early autumn. Further analyses suggest that ENSO serves as a critical source of predictability for MHWs over the TIO and TAO in spring and MHWs over the NWP in summer.

Dynamic adaptive spatio-temporal graph network for COVID-19 forecasting

Appropriately characterising the mixed space-time relations of the contagion process caused by hybrid space and time factors remains the primary challenge in COVID-19 forecasting.However,in previous deep learning models for epidemic forecasting,spatial and temporal variations are captured separately.A unified model is developed to cover all spatio-temporal relations.However,this measure is insufficient for modelling the complex spatio-temporal relations of infectious disease transmission.A dynamic adaptive spatio-temporal graph network(DASTGN)is proposed based on attention mechanisms to improve prediction accuracy.In DASTGN,complex spatio-temporal relations are depicted by adaptively fusing the mixed space-time effects and dynamic space-time dependency structure.This dual-scale model considers the time-specific,space-specific,and direct effects of the propagation process at the fine-grained level.Furthermore,the model characterises impacts from various space-time neighbour blocks under time-varying interventions at the coarse-grained level.The performance comparisons on the three COVID-19 datasets reveal that DASTGN achieves state-of-the-art results with a maximum improvement of 17.092%in the root mean-square error and 11.563%in the mean absolute error.Experimental results indicate that the mechanisms of designing DASTGN can effectively detect some spreading characteristics of COVID-19.The spatio-temporal weight matrices learned in each proposed module reveal diffusion patterns in various scenarios.In conclusion,DASTGN has successfully captured the dynamic spatio-temporal variations of COVID-19,and considering multiple dynamic space-time relationships is essential in epidemic forecasting.

Weather-Driven Solar Power Forecasting Using D-Informer:Enhancing Predictions with Climate Variables

Precise forecasting of solar power is crucial for the development of sustainable energy systems.Contemporary forecasting approaches often fail to adequately consider the crucial role of weather factors in photovoltaic(PV)power generation and encounter issues such as gradient explosion or disappearance when dealing with extensive time-series data.To overcome these challenges,this research presents a cutting-edge,multi-stage forecasting method called D-Informer.This method skillfully merges the differential transformation algorithm with the Informer model,leveraging a detailed array of meteorological variables and historical PV power generation records.The D-Informer model exhibits remarkable superiority over competing models across multiple performance metrics,achieving on average a 67.64%reduction in mean squared error(MSE),a 49.58%decrease in mean absolute error(MAE),and a 43.43%reduction in root mean square error(RMSE).Moreover,it attained an R2 value as high as 0.9917 during the winter season,highlighting its precision and dependability.This significant advancement can be primarily attributed to the incorporation of a multi-head self-attention mechanism,which greatly enhances the model’s ability to identify complex interactions among diverse input variables,and the inclusion of weather variables,enriching the model’s input data and strengthening its predictive accuracy in time series analysis.Additionally,the experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Evaluating the Robustness of MDSS Maintenance Forecasts Using Connected Vehicle Data

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) adopted the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) for user-defined plowing segments in the winter of 2008-2009. Since then, many new data sources, including connected vehicle data, enhanced weather data, and fleet telematics, have been integrated into INDOT winter operations activities. The objective of this study was to use these new data sources to conduct a systematic evaluation of the robustness of the MDSS forecasts. During the 2023-2024 winter season, 26 unique MDSS forecast data attributes were collected at 0, 1, 3, 6, 12 and 23-hour intervals from the observed storm time for 6 roadway segments during 13 individual storms. In total, over 888,000 MDSS data points were archived for this evaluation. This study developed novel visualizations to compare MDSS forecasts to multiple other independent data sources, including connected vehicle data, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather data, road friction data and snowplow telematics. Three Indiana storms, with varying characteristics and severity, were analyzed in detailed case studies. Those storms occurred on January 6th, 2024, January 13th, 2024 and February 16th, 2024. Incorporating these visualizations into winter weather after-action reports increases the robustness of post-storm performance analysis and allows road weather stakeholders to better understand the capabilities of MDSS. The results of this analysis will provide a framework for future MDSS evaluations and implementations as well as training tools for winter operation stakeholders in Indiana and beyond.