A Simulation-Based Model for Final Price Prediction in Online Auctions

Online auctions, a profitable, exciting, and dynamic part of e-commerce, have enjoyed increasing public interest. However, there is still a paucity of literature on final price prediction for online auctions. Although Markov process models provide a mathematical approach to predicting online auction prices, estimating parameters of a Markov process model in practice is a challenging task. In this paper we propose a simulation-based model as an alternative approach to predicting the final price in online auctions. The simulation results show that the proposed model can predict the final price more accurately than a Markov process model. Additionally, the consistent lower predictions of the Markov process model suggest a direction for future research into improving performance in both models.Markov process, simulation, e-commerce, auction, final price prediction

Obliquity pacing of the western Pacific IntertropicalConvergence Zone over the past 282,000 years

The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) encompasses the heaviest rain belt on the Earth. Few direct long-term records, especially in the Pacific, limit our understanding of long-term natural variability for predicting future ITCZ migration. Here we present a tropical precipitation record from the Southern Hemisphere covering the past 282,000 years, inferred from a marine sedimentary sequence collected off the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea. Unlike the precession paradigm expressed in its East Asian counterpart, our record shows that the western Pacific ITCZ migration was influenced by combined precession and obliquity changes. The obliquity forcing could be primarily delivered by a cross-hemispherical thermal/ pressure contrast, resulting from the asymmetric continental configuration between Asia and Australia in a coupled East Asian–Australian circulation system. Our finding suggests that the obliquity forcing may play a more important role in global hydroclimate cycles than previously thought