In this note we show that the locally stationary wavelet process can be decomposed into a sum of signals, each of which following a moving average process with time-varying parameters. We then show that such moving average processes are equivalent to state space models with stochastic design components. Using a simple simulation step, we propose a heuristic method of estimating the above state space models and then we apply the methodology to foreign exchange rates data.
Distributed acoustic sensing technology is increasingly being used to support production and well management within the oil and gas sector, for example to improve flow monitoring and production profiling. This sensing technology is capable of recording substantial data volumes at multiple depths within an oil well, giving unprecedented insights into production behaviour. However the technology is also prone to recording periods of anomalous behaviour, where the same physical features are concurrently observed at multiple depths. Such features are called `stripes' and are undesirable, detriment…
How does soil pollution affect a plant's circadian clock? Are there any differences between how the clock reacts when exposed to different concentrations of elements of the periodic table? If so, can we characterise these differences? We approach these questions by analysing and modelling circadian plant data, where the levels of expression of a luciferase reporter gene were measured at regular intervals over a number of days after exposure to different concentrations of lithium. A key aspect of circadian data analysis is to determine whether a time series (derived from experimental data) is `…
We introduce WECS (Wavelet Energies Correlation Sreening), an unsupervised sparse procedure to detect spatio-temporal change points on multi-temporal SAR (POLSAR) images or even on sequences of very high resolution images. The procedure is based on wavelet approximation for the multi-temporal images, wavelet energy apportionment, and ultra-high dimensional correlation screening for the wavelet coefficients. We present two complimentary wavelet measures in order to detect sudden and/or cumulative changes, as well as for the case of stationary or non-stationary multi-temporal images. We show WEC…
We consider a time series $X=\{X_k, k\in\mathbb{Z}\}$ with memory parameter $d\in\mathbb{R}$. This time series is either stationary or can be made stationary after differencing a finite number of times. We study the "Local Whittle Wavelet Estimator" of the memory parameter $d$. This is a wavelet-based semiparametric pseudo-likelihood maximum method estimator. The estimator may depend on a given finite range of scales or on a range which becomes infinite with the sample size. We show that the estimator is consistent and rate optimal if $X$ is a linear process and is asymptotically normal if $X$…
Accurate forecasting of the U.K. gross value added (GVA) is fundamental for measuring the growth of the U.K. economy. A common nonstationarity in GVA data, such as the ABML series, is its increase in variance over time due to inflation. Transformed or inflation-adjusted series can still be challenging for classical stationarity-assuming forecasters. We adopt a different approach that works directly with the GVA series by advancing recent forecasting methods for locally stationary time series. Our approach results in more accurate and reliable forecasts, and continues to work well even when the…
In this paper, we propose a fast, well-performing, and consistent method for segmenting a piecewise-stationary, linear time series with an unknown number of breakpoints. The time series model we use is the nonparametric Locally Stationary Wavelet model, in which a complete description of the piecewise-stationary second-order structure is provided by wavelet periodograms computed at multiple scales and locations. The initial stage of our method is a new binary segmentation procedure, with a theoretically justified and rapidly computable test criterion that detects breakpoints in wavelet periodo…
Intrinsic wavelet transforms and wavelet estimation methods are introduced for curves in the non-Euclidean space of Hermitian positive definite matrices, with in mind the application to Fourier spectral estimation of multivariate stationary time series. The main focus is on intrinsic average-interpolation wavelet transforms in the space of positive definite matrices equipped with an affine-invariant Riemannian metric, and convergence rates of linear wavelet thresholding are derived for intrinsically smooth curves of Hermitian positive definite matrices. In the context of multivariate Fourier s…
The Model-free Prediction Principle has been successfully applied to general regression problems, as well as problems involving stationary and locally stationary time series. In this paper we demonstrate how Model-Free Prediction can be applied to handle random fields that are only locally stationary, i.e., they can be assumed to be stationary only across a limited part over their entire region of definition. We construct one-step-ahead point predictors and compare the performance of Model-free to Model-based prediction using models that incorporate a trend and/or heteroscedasticity. Both aspe…
Methods of estimation and forecasting for stationary models are well known in classical time series analysis. However, stationarity is an idealization which, in practice, can at best hold as an approximation, but for many time series may be an unrealistic assumption. We define a class of locally stationary processes which can lead to more accurate uncertainty quantification over making an invalid assumption of stationarity. This class of processes assumes the model parameters to be time-varying and parameterizes them in terms of a transformation of basis functions that ensures that the process…
The Model-free Prediction Principle of Politis (2015) has been successfully applied to general regression problems, as well as problems involving stationary time series. However, with long time series, e.g. annual temperature measurements spanning over 100 years or daily financial returns spanning several years, it may be unrealistic to assume stationarity throughout the span of the dataset. In the paper at hand, we show how Model-free Prediction can be applied to handle time series that are only locally stationary, i.e., they can be assumed to be as stationary only over short time-windows. Su…
We develop an estimator for the high-dimensional covariance matrix of a locally stationary process with a smoothly varying trend and use this statistic to derive consistent predictors in non-stationary time series. In contrast to the currently available methods for this problem the predictor developed here does not rely on fitting an autoregressive model and does not require a vanishing trend. The finite sample properties of the new methodology are illustrated by means of a simulation study and a financial indices study.
The Portmanteau test provides the vanilla method for detecting serial correlations in classical univariate time series analysis. The method is extended to the case of observations from a locally stationary functional time series. Asymptotic critical values are obtained by a suitable block multiplier bootstrap procedure. The test is shown to asymptotically hold its level and to be consistent against general alternatives.
During the last two decades, locally stationary processes have been widely studied in the time series literature. In this paper we consider the locally-stationary vector-auto-regression model of order one, or LS-VAR(1), and estimate its parameters by weighted least squares. The LS-VAR(1) we consider allows for a smoothly time-varying non-diagonal VAR matrix, as well as for a smoothly time-varying non-zero mean. The weighting scheme is based on kernel smoothers. The time-varying mean and the time-varying VAR matrix are estimated jointly, and the definition of the local-linear weighting matrix i…
The article contains an overview over locally stationary processes. At the beginning time varying autoregressive processes are discussed in detail - both as as a deep example and an important class of locally stationary processes. In the next section a general framework for time series with time varying finite dimensional parameters is discussed with special emphasis on nonlinear locally stationary processes. Then the paper focusses on linear processes where a more general theory is possible. First a general definition for linear processes is given and time varying spectral densities are discu…
Most time series observed in practice exhibit time-varying trend (first-order) and autocovariance (second-order) behaviour. Differencing is a commonly-used technique to remove the trend in such series, in order to estimate the time-varying second-order structure (of the differenced series). However, often we require inference on the second-order behaviour of the original series, for example, when performing trend estimation. In this article, we propose a method, using differencing, to jointly estimate the time-varying trend and second-order structure of a nonstationary time series, within the …
We introduce the concept of local dyadic stationarity, to account for non-stationary time series, within the framework of Walsh-Fourier analysis. We define and study the time varying dyadic ARMA models (tvDARMA). It is proven that the general tvDARMA process can be approximated locally by either a tvDMA and a tvDAR process.
We consider the estimation of the transition matrix in the high-dimensional time-varying vector autoregression (TV-VAR) models. Our model builds on a general class of locally stationary VAR processes that evolve smoothly in time. We propose a hybridized kernel smoothing and $\ell^1$-regularized method to directly estimate the sequence of time-varying transition matrices. Under the sparsity assumption on the transition matrix, we establish the rate of convergence of the proposed estimator and show that the convergence rate depends on the smoothness of the locally stationary VAR processes only t…
Locally stationary Hawkes processes have been introduced in order to generalise classical Hawkes processes away from stationarity by allowing for a time-varying second-order structure. This class of self-exciting point processes has recently attracted a lot of interest in applications in the life sciences (seismology, genomics, neuro-science,...), but also in the modelling of high-frequency financial data. In this contribution we provide a fully developed nonparametric estimation theory of both local mean density and local Bartlett spectra of a locally stationary Hawkes process. In particular …
A time-varying empirical spectral process indexed by classes of functions is defined for locally stationary time series. We derive weak convergence in a function space, and prove a maximal exponential inequality and a Glivenko--Cantelli-type convergence result. The results use conditions based on the metric entropy of the index class. In contrast to related earlier work, no Gaussian assumption is made. As applications, quasi-likelihood estimation, goodness-of-fit testing and inference under model misspecification are discussed. In an extended application, uniform rates of convergence are deriv…
We adapt the classical definition of locally stationary processes in discrete-time to the continuous-time setting and obtain equivalent representations in the time and frequency domain. From this, a unique time-varying spectral density is derived using the Wigner-Ville spectrum. As an example, we investigate time-varying Lévy-driven state space processes, including the class of time-varying Lévy-driven CARMA processes. First, the connection between these two classes of processes is examined. Considering a sequence of time-varying Lévy-driven state space processes, we then give sufficient condi…
In the recent years, methods to estimate the memory parameter using wavelet analysis have gained popularity in many areas of science. Despite its widespread use, a rigorous semi-parametric asymptotic theory, comparable to the one developed for Fourier methods, is still missing. In this contribution, we adapt the classical semi-parametric framework introduced by Robinson and his co-authors for estimating the memory parameter of a (possibly) non-stationary process. As an application, we obtain minimax upper bounds for the log-scale regression estimator of the memory parameter for a Gaussian proc…
In this paper we propose a nonparametric procedure for validating the assumption of stationarity in multivariate locally stationary time series models. We develop a bootstrap assisted test based on a Kolmogorov-Smirnov type statistic, which tracks the deviation of the time varying spectral density from its best stationary approximation. In contrast to all other nonparametric approaches, which have been proposed in the literature so far, the test statistic does not depend on any regularization parameters like smoothing bandwidths or a window length, which is usually required in a segmentation o…
This paper addresses the estimation of locally stationary long-range dependent processes, a methodology that allows the statistical analysis of time series data exhibiting both nonstationarity and strong dependency. A time-varying parametric formulation of these models is introduced and a Whittle likelihood technique is proposed for estimating the parameters involved. Large sample properties of these Whittle estimates such as consistency, normality and efficiency are established in this work. Furthermore, the finite sample behavior of the estimators is investigated through Monte Carlo experime…
In this paper, we study nonparametric models allowing for locally stationary regressors and a regression function that changes smoothly over time. These models are a natural extension of time series models with time-varying coefficients. We introduce a kernel-based method to estimate the time-varying regression function and provide asymptotic theory for our estimates. Moreover, we show that the main conditions of the theory are satisfied for a large class of nonlinear autoregressive processes with a time-varying regression function. Finally, we examine structured models where the regression fu…
Forecasting the evolution of complex systems is one of the grand challenges of modern data science. The fundamental difficulty lies in understanding the structure of the observed stochastic process. In this paper, we show that every uniformly-positive-definite-in-covariance and sufficiently short-range dependent non-stationary and nonlinear time series can be well approximated globally by an auto-regressive process of slowly diverging order. When linear prediction with ${\cal L}^2$ loss is concerned, the latter result facilitates a unified globally-optimal short-term forecasting theory for a w…
It is increasingly being realised that many real world time series are not stationary and exhibit evolving second-order autocovariance or spectral structure. This article introduces a Bayesian approach for modelling the evolving wavelet spectrum of a locally stationary wavelet time series. Our new method works by combining the advantages of a Haar-Fisz transformed spectrum with a simple, but powerful, Bayesian wavelet shrinkage method. Our new method produces excellent and stable spectral estimates and this is demonstrated via simulated data and on differenced infant ECG data. A major addition…
This paper develops intrinsic wavelet denoising methods for surfaces of Hermitian positive definite matrices, with in mind the application to nonparametric estimation of the time-varying spectral matrix of a multivariate locally stationary time series. First, we construct intrinsic average-interpolating wavelet transforms acting directly on surfaces of Hermitian positive definite matrices in a curved Riemannian manifold with respect to an affine-invariant metric. Second, we derive the wavelet coefficient decay and linear wavelet thresholding convergence rates of intrinsically smooth surfaces o…
We introduce a high-dimensional factor model with time-varying loadings. We cover both stationary and nonstationary factors to increase the possibilities of applications. We propose an estimation procedure based on two stages. First, we estimate common factors by principal components. In the second step, considering the estimated factors as observed, the time-varying loadings are estimated by an iterative generalized least squares procedure using wavelet functions. We investigate the finite sample features by some Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we apply the model to study the Nord Pool powe…
Based on a novel dynamic Whittle likelihood approximation for locally stationary processes, a Bayesian nonparametric approach to estimating the time-varying spectral density is proposed. This dynamic frequency-domain based likelihood approximation is able to depict the time-frequency evolution of the process by utilizing the moving periodogram previously introduced in the bootstrap literature. The posterior distribution is obtained by updating a bivariate extension of the Bernstein-Dirichlet process prior with the dynamic Whittle likelihood. Asymptotic properties such as sup-norm posterior con…
The class of locally stationary processes assumes that there is a time-varying spectral representation, that is, the existence of finite second moment. We propose the $α$-stable locally stationary process by modifying the innovations into stable distributions and the indirect inference to estimate this type of model. Due to the infinite variance, some of interesting properties such as time-varying auto-correlation cannot be defined. However, since the $α$-stable family of distributions is closed under linear combination which includes the possibility of handling asymmetry and thicker tails, th…
An exact and general expression for the analytic wavelet transform of a real-valued signal is constructed, resolving the time-dependent effects of non-negligible amplitude and frequency modulation. The analytic signal is first locally represented as a modulated oscillation, demodulated by its own instantaneous frequency, and then Taylor-expanded at each point in time. The terms in this expansion, called the instantaneous modulation functions, are time-varying functions which quantify, at increasingly higher orders, the local departures of the signal from a uniform sinusoidal oscillation. Close…
