Previously we’ve covered the basics of exogenous variables in smooth functions. Today we will go slightly crazy and discuss automatic variables selection. But before we do that, we need to look at a Santa’s little helper function implemented in smooth. It is called xregExpander(). It is useful in cases when you think that your exogenous […]
Univariate models
“smooth” package for R. Common ground. Part III. Exogenous variables. Basic stuff
One of the features of the functions in smooth package is the ability to use exogenous (aka “external”) variables. This potentially leads to the increase in the forecasting accuracy (given that you have a good estimate of the future exogenous variable). For example, in retail this can be a binary variable for promotions and we […]
“smooth” package for R. Common ground. Part II. Estimators
UPDATE: Starting from the v2.5.1 the cfType parameter has been renamed into loss. This post has been updated since then in order to include the more recent name. A bit about estimates of parameters Hi everyone! Today I want to tell you about parameters estimation of smooth functions. But before going into details, there are […]
Multiplicative State-Space Models for Intermittent Time Series
John Boylan and I have been working on a paper about state-space models for intermittent data. We have had some good progress in that direction and have submitted the paper to IJF. Although it is still under review, we decided to publish the working paper in order to promote the thing. Here’s the abstract: Intermittent […]
smooth v2.0.0. What’s new
Good news, everyone! smooth package has recently received a major update. The version on CRAN is now v2.0.0. I thought that this is a big deal, so I decided to pause for a moment and explain what has happened, and why this new version is interesting. First of all, there is a new function, ves(), […]
“smooth” package for R. Common ground. Part I. Prediction intervals
UPDATE: Starting from v2.5.1 the parameter intervals has been renamed into interval for the consistency purposes with the other R functions. We have spent previous six posts discussing basics of es() function (underlying models and their implementation). Now it is time to move forward. Starting from this post we will discuss common parameters, shared by […]
“smooth” package for R. es() function. Part VI. Parameters optimisation
UPDATE: Starting from the v2.5.6 the C parameter has been renamed into B. This is now consistent across all the functions. Now that we looked into the basics of es() function, we can discuss how the optimisation mechanism works, how the parameters are restricted and what are the initials values for the parameters in the […]
“smooth” package for R. es() function. Part V. Essential parameters
While the previous posts on es() function contained two parts: theory of ETS and then the implementation – this post will cover only the latter. We won’t discuss anything new, we will mainly look into several parameters that the exponential smoothing function has and what they allow us to do. We start with initialisation of […]
“smooth” package for R. es() function. Part IV. Model selection and combination of forecasts
Mixed models In the previous posts we have discussed pure additive and pure multiplicative exponential smoothing models. The next logical step would be to discuss mixed models, where some components have additive and the others have multiplicative nature. But we won’t spend much time on them because I personally think that they do not make […]
“smooth” package for R. es() function. Part III. Multiplicative models
Theoretical stuff Last time we talked about pure additive models, today I want to discuss multiplicative ones. There is a general scepticism about pure multiplicative exponential smoothing models in the forecasters society, because it is not clear why level, trend, seasonality and error term should be multiplied. Well, when it comes to seasonality, then there […]