Given a collection of entities (or nodes) in a network and our intermittent observations of activities from each entity, an important problem is to learn the hidden edges depicting directional relationships among these entities. Here, we study causal relationships (excitations) that are realized by a multivariate Hawkes process. The multivariate Hawkes process (MHP) and its variations (spatio-temporal point processes) have been used to study contagion in earthquakes, crimes, neural spiking activities, the stock and foreign exchange markets, etc. In this paper, we consider the multivariate Hawkes process with gaps in observations (MHPG). We propose a variational problem for detecting sparsely hidden relationships with a multivariate Hawkes process that takes into account the gaps from each entity. We bypass the problem of dealing with a large amount of missing events by introducing a small number of unknown boundary conditions. In the case where our observations are sparse (e.g. from 10% to 30%), we show through numerical simulations that robust recovery with MHPG is still possible even if the lengths of the observed intervals are small but they are chosen accordingly. The numerical results also show that the knowledge of gaps and imposing the right boundary conditions are very crucial in discovering the underlying patterns and hidden relationships.
As an extension of self-exciting Hawkes process, the multivariate Hawkes process models counting processes of different types of random events with mutual excitement. In this paper, we present a perfect sampling algorithm that can generate i.i.d. stationary sample paths of multivariate Hawkes process without any transient bias. In addition, we provide an explicit expression of algorithm complexity in model and algorithm parameters and provide numerical schemes to find the optimal parameter set that minimizes the complexity of the perfect sampling algorithm.
Stablecoins, digital assets pegged to a specific currency or commodity value, are heavily involved in transactions of major cryptocurrencies. The effects of deviations from their desired fixed values (depeggings) on the cryptocurrencies for which they are frequently used in transactions are therefore of interest to study. We propose a model for this phenomenon using a multivariate mutually-exciting Hawkes process, and present a numerical example applying this model to Tether (USDT) and Bitcoin (BTC).
We introduce a multivariate Hawkes process with constraints on its conditional density. It is a multivariate point process with conditional intensity similar to that of a multivariate Hawkes process but certain events are forbidden with respect to boundary conditions on a multidimensional constraint variable, whose evolution is driven by the point process. We study this process in the special case where the fertility function is exponential so that the process is entirely described by an underlying Markov chain, which includes the constraint variable. Some conditions on the parameters are esta…
Learning the influence structure of multiple time series data is of great interest to many disciplines. This paper studies the problem of recovering the causal structure in network of multivariate linear Hawkes processes. In such processes, the occurrence of an event in one process affects the probability of occurrence of new events in some other processes. Thus, a natural notion of causality exists between such processes captured by the support of the excitation matrix. We show that the resulting causal influence network is equivalent to the Directed Information graph (DIG) of the processes, …
We derive exact analytical expressions for the cumulants of any orders of neuronal membrane potentials driven by spike trains in a multivariate Hawkes process model with excitation and inhibition. Such expressions can be used for the prediction and sensitivity analysis of the statistical behavior of the model over time, and to estimate the probability densities of neuronal membrane potentials using Gram-Charlier expansions. Our results are shown to provide a better alternative to Monte Carlo estimates via stochastic simulations, and computer codes based on combinatorial recursions are included…
This paper proves the consistency property for the regularized maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) of multivariate Hawkes processes (MHPs). It also develops an alternating minimization type algorithm (AA-iPALM) to compute the MLEs with guaranteed global convergence to the set of stationary points. The performance of this AA-iPALM algorithm on both synthetic and real-world data shows that AA-iPALM consistently improves over iPALM and PALM. Moreover, AA-iPALM is able to identify the causality structure in rental listings on craigslist and herd behavior in the NASDAQ ITCH dataset.
University of Toledo（托莱多大学）；The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学）
The stochastic block model (SBM) is one of the most widely used generative models for network data. Many continuous-time dynamic network models are built upon the same assumption as the SBM: edges or events between all pairs of nodes are conditionally independent given the block or community memberships, which prevents them from reproducing higher-order motifs such as triangles that are commonly observed in real networks. We propose the multivariate community Hawkes (MULCH) model, an extremely flexible community-based model for continuous-time networks that introduces dependence between node p…
In this paper, we present a framework for fitting multivariate Hawkes processes for large-scale problems both in the number of events in the observed history $n$ and the number of event types $d$ (i.e. dimensions). The proposed Low-Rank Hawkes Process (LRHP) framework introduces a low-rank approximation of the kernel matrix that allows to perform the nonparametric learning of the $d^2$ triggering kernels using at most $O(ndr^2)$ operations, where $r$ is the rank of the approximation ($r \ll d,n$). This comes as a major improvement to the existing state-of-the-art inference algorithms that are …
Hawkes (1971) introduced a powerful multivariate point process model of mutually exciting processes to explain causal structure in data. In this paper it is shown that the Granger causality structure of such processes is fully encoded in the corresponding link functions of the model. A new nonparametric estimator of the link functions based on a time-discretized version of the point process is introduced by using an infinite order autoregression. Consistency of the new estimator is derived. The estimator is applied to simulated data and to neural spike train data from the spinal dorsal horn of…
It is often assumed that events cannot occur simultaneously when modelling data with point processes. This raises a problem as real-world data often contains synchronous observations due to aggregation or rounding, resulting from limitations on recording capabilities and the expense of storing high volumes of precise data. In order to gain a better understanding of the relationships between processes, we consider modelling the aggregated event data using multivariate Hawkes processes, which offer a description of mutually-exciting behaviour and have found wide applications in areas including s…
The Hawkes process is a class of point processes whose future depends on their own history. Previous theoretical work on the Hawkes process is limited to a special case in which a past event can only increase the occurrence of future events, and the link function is linear. However, in neuronal networks and other real-world applications, inhibitory relationships may be present, and the link function may be non-linear. In this paper, we develop a new approach for investigating the properties of the Hawkes process without the restriction to mutual excitation or linear link functions. To this end…
Online learning of Hawkes processes has received increasing attention in the last couple of years especially for modeling a network of actors. However, these works typically either model the rich interaction between the events or the latent cluster of the actors or the network structure between the actors. We propose to model the latent structure of the network of actors as well as their rich interaction across events for real-world settings of medical and financial applications. Experimental results on both synthetic and real-world data showcase the efficacy of our approach.
We consider the problem of unveiling the implicit network structure of node interactions (such as user interactions in a social network), based only on high-frequency timestamps. Our inference is based on the minimization of the least-squares loss associated with a multivariate Hawkes model, penalized by $\ell_1$ and trace norm of the interaction tensor. We provide a first theoretical analysis for this problem, that includes sparsity and low-rank inducing penalizations. This result involves a new data-driven concentration inequality for matrix martingales in continuous time with observable var…
Multivariate Hawkes Processes (MHPs) are an important class of temporal point processes that have enabled key advances in understanding and predicting social information systems. However, due to their complex modeling of temporal dependencies, MHPs have proven to be notoriously difficult to scale, what has limited their applications to relatively small domains. In this work, we propose a novel model and computational approach to overcome this important limitation. By exploiting a characteristic sparsity pattern in real-world diffusion processes, we show that our approach allows to compute the …
There is often latent network structure in spatial and temporal data and the tools of network analysis can yield fascinating insights into such data. In this paper, we develop a nonparametric method for network reconstruction from spatiotemporal data sets using multivariate Hawkes processes. In contrast to prior work on network reconstruction with point-process models, which has often focused on exclusively temporal information, our approach uses both temporal and spatial information and does not assume a specific parametric form of network dynamics. This leads to an effective way of recoverin…
Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, UMR 7641（应用数学中心，CNRS，巴黎综合理工学院，UMR 7641）；Capital Fund Management；Laboratoire Sciences Pour l’Environnement, Université de Corse（环境科学实验室，科西嘉大学）
We design a new nonparametric method that allows one to estimate the matrix of integrated kernels of a multivariate Hawkes process. This matrix not only encodes the mutual influences of each nodes of the process, but also disentangles the causality relationships between them. Our approach is the first that leads to an estimation of this matrix without any parametric modeling and estimation of the kernels themselves. A consequence is that it can give an estimation of causality relationships between nodes (or users), based on their activity timestamps (on a social network for instance), without …
Beihang University（北京航空航天大学）；University of Ottawa（渥太华大学）；National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China（国家计算机网络应急技术处理协调中心）
Understanding the diffusion in social network is an important task. However, this task is challenging since (1) the network structure is usually hidden with only observations of events like "post" or "repost" associated with each node, and (2) the interactions between nodes encompass multiple distinct patterns which in turn affect the diffusion patterns. For instance, social interactions seldom develop on a single channel, and multiple relationships can bind pairs of people due to their various common interests. Most previous work considers only one of these two challenges which is apparently …
Many events occur in the world. Some event types are stochastically excited or inhibited---in the sense of having their probabilities elevated or decreased---by patterns in the sequence of previous events. Discovering such patterns can help us predict which type of event will happen next and when. We model streams of discrete events in continuous time, by constructing a neurally self-modulating multivariate point process in which the intensities of multiple event types evolve according to a novel continuous-time LSTM. This generative model allows past events to influence the future in complex …
This paper introduces the Hawkes skeleton and the Hawkes graph. These objects summarize the branching structure of a multivariate Hawkes point process in a compact, yet meaningful way. We demonstrate how graph-theoretic vocabulary (`ancestor sets', `parent sets', `connectivity', `walks', `walk weights', ...) is very convenient for the discussion of multivariate Hawkes processes. For example, we reformulate the classic eigenvalue-based subcriticality criterion of multitype branching processes in graph terms. Next to these more terminological contributions, we show how the graph view may be used…
We develop a quasi-likelihood analysis procedure for a general class of multivariate marked point processes. As a by-product of the general method, we establish under stability and ergodicity conditions the local asymptotic normality of the quasi-log likelihood, along with the convergence of moments of quasi-likelihood and quasi-Bayesian estimators. To illustrate the general approach, we then turn our attention to a class of multivariate marked Hawkes processes with generalized exponential kernels, comprising among others the so-called Erlang kernels. We provide explicit conditions on the kern…
In this paper, we present a nonparametric estimation procedure for the multivariate Hawkes point process. The timeline is cut into bins and -- for each component process -- the number of points in each bin is counted. The distribution of the resulting "bin-count sequences" can be approximated by an integer-valued autoregressive model known as the (multivariate) INAR($p$) model. We represent the INAR($p$) model as a standard vector-valued linear autoregressive time series with white-noise innovations (VAR($p$)). We establish consistency and asymptotic normality for conditional least-squares est…
We derive explicit, closed-form expressions for the cumulant densities of a multivariate, self-exciting Hawkes point process, generalizing a result of Hawkes in his earlier work on the covariance density and Bartlett spectrum of such processes. To do this, we represent the Hawkes process in terms of a Poisson cluster process and show how the cumulant density formulas can be derived by enumerating all possible "family trees", representing complex interactions between point events. We also consider the problem of computing the integrated cumulants, characterizing the average measure of correlate…
Renmin University of China（中国人民大学）；Beijing Institute of Technology（北京理工大学）；The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen（香港中文大学（深圳））；Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data（深圳大数据研究院）
We propose a novel framework for modeling multiple multivariate point processes, each with heterogeneous event types that share an underlying space and obey the same generative mechanism. Focusing on Hawkes processes and their variants that are associated with Granger causality graphs, our model leverages an uncountable event type space and samples the graphs with different sizes from a nonparametric model called {\it graphon}. Given those graphs, we can generate the corresponding Hawkes processes and simulate event sequences. Learning this graphon-based Hawkes process model helps to 1) infer …
Linear multivariate Hawkes processes (MHP) are a fundamental class of point processes with self-excitation. When estimating parameters for these processes, a difficulty is that the two main error functionals, the log-likelihood and the least squares error (LSE), as well as the evaluation of their gradients, have a quadratic complexity in the number of observed events. In practice, this prohibits the use of exact gradient-based algorithms for parameter estimation. We construct an adaptive stratified sampling estimator of the gradient of the LSE. This results in a fast parametric estimation meth…
LMU Munich（慕尼黑大学）；Siemens AG（西门子股份公司）；ETH Zürich（苏黎世联邦理工学院）；Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）
The Hawkes process has become a standard method for modeling self-exciting event sequences with different event types. A recent work has generalized the Hawkes process to a neurally self-modulating multivariate point process, which enables the capturing of more complex and realistic impacts of past events on future events. However, this approach is limited by the number of possible event types, making it impossible to model the dynamics of evolving graph sequences, where each possible link between two nodes can be considered as an event type. The number of event types increases even further wh…
We show that univariate and symmetric multivariate Hawkes processes are only weakly causal: the true log-likelihoods of real and reversed event time vectors are almost equal, thus parameter estimation via maximum likelihood only weakly depends on the direction of the arrow of time. In ideal (synthetic) conditions, tests of goodness of parametric fit unambiguously reject backward event times, which implies that inferring kernels from time-symmetric quantities, such as the autocovariance of the event rate, only rarely produce statistically significant fits. Finally, we find that fitting financia…
Common Drivers in Sparsely Interacting Hawkes Processes
University of Hildesheim（希尔德斯海姆大学）；Institute for Mathematics, Mathematics Education and Computer Science Education（数学、数学教育和计算机科学教育研究所）；Heidelberg University（海德堡大学）；Institute of Applied Mathematics（应用数学研究所）；UC Davis（加州大学戴维斯分校）；Department of Statistics（统计学系）
Asynchronous events on the continuous time domain, e.g., social media actions and stock transactions, occur frequently in the world. The ability to recognize occurrence patterns of event sequences is crucial to predict which typeof events will happen next and when. A de facto standard mathematical framework to do this is the Hawkes process. In order to enhance expressivity of multivariate Hawkes processes, conventional statistical methods and deep recurrent networks have been employed to modify its intensity function. The former is highly interpretable and requires small size of training data …
A multivariate Hawkes process enables self- and cross-excitations through a triggering matrix that behaves like an asymmetrical covariance structure, characterizing pairwise interactions between the event types. Full-rank estimation of all interactions is often infeasible in empirical settings. Models that specialize on a spatiotemporal application alleviate this obstacle by exploiting spatial locality, allowing the dyadic relationships between events to depend only on separation in time and relative distances in real Euclidean space. Here we generalize this framework to any multivariate Hawke…
Learning the causal-interaction network of multivariate Hawkes processes is a useful task in many applications. Maximum-likelihood estimation is the most common approach to solve the problem in the presence of long observation sequences. However, when only short sequences are available, the lack of data amplifies the risk of overfitting and regularization becomes critical. Due to the challenges of hyper-parameter tuning, state-of-the-art methods only parameterize regularizers by a single shared hyper-parameter, hence limiting the power of representation of the model. To solve both issues, we d…
Hawkes processes are a self-exciting stochastic process used to describe phenomena whereby past events increase the probability of the occurrence of future events. This work presents a flexible approach for modelling a variant of these, namely discrete-time Hawkes processes. Most standard models of Hawkes processes rely on a parametric form for the function describing the influence of past events, referred to as the triggering kernel. This is likely to be insufficient to capture the true excitation pattern, particularly for complex data. By utilising trans-dimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo …
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen（香港中文大学（深圳））；Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute（清华-伯克利深圳学院）；Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School（清华大学深圳国际研究生院）；Graduate School, Tsinghua University（清华大学研究生院）
Spectral clustering for dependent community Hawkes process models of temporal networks
Department of Statistics The Ohio State University（统计学系俄亥俄州立大学）；Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science University of Toledo（电气工程与计算机科学系托莱多大学）；Department of Computer and Data Sciences Case Western Reserve University（计算机与数据科学系凯斯西储大学）
