Book Image

Modern Time Series Forecasting with Python

By : Manu Joseph
5 (1)
Book Image

Modern Time Series Forecasting with Python

5 (1)
By: Manu Joseph

Overview of this book

We live in a serendipitous era where the explosion in the quantum of data collected and a renewed interest in data-driven techniques such as machine learning (ML), has changed the landscape of analytics, and with it, time series forecasting. This book, filled with industry-tested tips and tricks, takes you beyond commonly used classical statistical methods such as ARIMA and introduces to you the latest techniques from the world of ML. This is a comprehensive guide to analyzing, visualizing, and creating state-of-the-art forecasting systems, complete with common topics such as ML and deep learning (DL) as well as rarely touched-upon topics such as global forecasting models, cross-validation strategies, and forecast metrics. You’ll begin by exploring the basics of data handling, data visualization, and classical statistical methods before moving on to ML and DL models for time series forecasting. This book takes you on a hands-on journey in which you’ll develop state-of-the-art ML (linear regression to gradient-boosted trees) and DL (feed-forward neural networks, LSTMs, and transformers) models on a real-world dataset along with exploring practical topics such as interpretability. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to build world-class time series forecasting systems and tackle problems in the real world.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
1
Part 1 – Getting Familiar with Time Series
6
Part 2 – Machine Learning for Time Series
13
Part 3 – Deep Learning for Time Series
20
Part 4 – Mechanics of Forecasting

Creating global deep learning forecasting models

In Chapter 10, Global Forecasting Models, we talked in detail about why a global model makes sense. We talked about the benefits regarding increased sample size, cross-learning, multi-task learning and the regularization effect that comes with it, and reduced engineering complexity. All of these are relevant for a deep learning model as well. Engineering complexity and sample size become even more important because deep learning models are data-hungry and take quite a bit more engineering effort and training time than other machine learning models. I would go to the extent to say that in the deep learning context, in most practical cases where we have to forecast at scale, global models are the only deep learning paradigm that makes sense.

So, why did we spend all that time looking at individual models? Well, it’s easier to grasp the concept at that level, and the skills and knowledge we gained at that level are very easily...