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This paper explores the ability of factor models to predict the dynamics of US and UK interest rate swap spreads within a linear and a non-linear framework. We reject linearity for the US and UK swap spreads in favour of a regime-switching smooth transition vector autoregressive (STVAR) model, where the switching between regimes is controlled by the slope of the US term structure of interest rates. We compare the ability of the STVAR model to predict swap spreads with that of a non-linear nearest-neighbours model as well as that of linear AR and VAR models. We find some evidence that the non-linear models predict better than the linear ones. At short horizons, the nearest-neighbours (NN) model predicts better than the STVAR model US swap spreads in periods of increasing risk conditions and UK swap spreads in periods of decreasing risk conditions. At long horizons, the STVAR model increases its forecasting ability over the linear models, whereas the NN model does not outperform the rest of the models. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearest Neighbor search is an important and widely used technique in a number of important application domains. In many of these domains, the dimensionality of the data representation is often very high. Recent theoretical results have shown that the concept of proximity or nearest neighbors may not be very meaningful for the high dimensional case. Therefore, it is often a complex problem to find good quality nearest neighbors in such data sets. Furthermore, it is also difficult to judge the value and relevance of the returned results. In fact, it is hard for any fully automated system to satisfy a user about the quality of the nearest neighbors found unless he is directly involved in the process. This is especially the case for high dimensional data in which the meaningfulness of the nearest neighbors found is questionable. In this paper, we address the complex problem of high dimensional nearest neighbor search from the user perspective by designing a system which uses effective cooperation between the human and the computer. The system provides the user with visual representations of carefully chosen subspaces of the data in order to repeatedly elicit his preferences about the data patterns which are most closely related to the query point. These preferences are used in order to determine and quantify the meaningfulness of the nearest neighbors. Our system is not only able to find and quantify the meaningfulness of the nearest neighbors, but is also able to diagnose situations in which the nearest neighbors found are truly not meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Data availability and cost can be prohibitive barriers for energy modeling. • We use a statistical method to predict power plant parameters using available data. • We apply two learning methods: linear regression and k-nearest-neighbors. • These approaches are applied in the context of U.S. and Canadian power plant data. • Results show reasonable predictions of heatrates and, to a lesser extent, costs. Energy systems models are used to perform energy and environmental policy analysis, inform company strategy, and understand implications of technological change. Although open-source models can promote transparency and reproducibility, data availability and cost can be prohibitive barriers for researchers and other stakeholders. This paper presents a novel application of a statistical approach to predict unknown power plant parameters in Canada using available data from the United States, which can be applied in other settings where critical model inputs are missing. We apply two statistical learning methods, linear regression and k -nearest-neighbors, and compare their performance on unseen portions of the United States data before applying the learned functions to unknown Canadian data. Results indicate that reasonable predictions of heatrates and, to a lesser extent, operation and maintenance costs are possible even with limited data about age, capacity, and power plant types. The nearest-neighbor approach generally outperforms linear regressions for the datasets and applications to power plant parameters investigated here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a literature review concerning the formulation of nearest neighbor bias in forest inventory and monitoring applications in the U.S. It mentions the applicability of the regression estimation at the domain level to eliminate bias in sums of pixel predictions alternatively as well as stratification and recursive restriction estimation. Moreover, it points out the inability of these methods to measure the pixel predictions individually to result to an unbiased situation.

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