Interactive Change Point Detection using optimisation approach and Bayesian statistics applied to real world applications

Abstract: Change point detection becomes more and more important as datasets increase in size, where unsupervised detection algorithms can help users process data. To detect change points, a number of unsupervised algorithms have been developed which are based on different principles. One approach is to define an optimisation problem and minimise a cost function along with a penalty function. In the optimisation approach, the choice of the cost function affects the predictions made by the algorithm. In extension to the existing studies, a new type of cost function using Tikhonov regularisation is introduced. Another approach uses Bayesian statistics to calculate the posterior probability distribution of a specific point being a change point. It uses a priori knowledge on the distance between consecutive change points and a likelihood function with information about the segments. The optimisation and Bayesian approaches for offline change point detection are studied and applied to simulated datasets as well as a real world multi-phase dataset. The approaches have previously been studied separately and a novelty lies in comparing the predictions made by the two approaches in a specific setting, consisting of simulated datasets and a real world example. The study has found that the performance of the change point detection algorithms are affected by the features in the data.