Future fluctuations in oil prices could be forecast using a combination of previous statistics and complex computer algorithms, according to new research. Academics from the Gulf University for Science and Technology and Plymouth University used a range of programmed models to accurately predict previous rises and falls in the commodity's value over a period from January 1986 to June 2012. They discovered that when provided with several years of data, a gene expression programming (GEP) model almost perfectly predicted subsequent years' figures, outperforming traditional statistical techniques. It is also more accurate than other artificial neural network (NN) models, and the widely-used autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) system. http://phys.org/news/2016-03-evolutionary-algorithm-oil-price.html Paper: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999315004101