TFEC: Multivariate Time-Series Clustering via Temporal-Frequency Enhanced Contrastive Learning

Multivariate Time-Series (MTS) clustering is crucial for signal processing and data analysis. Although deep learning approaches, particularly those leveraging Contrastive Learning (CL), are prominent for MTS representation, existing CL-based models face two key limitations: 1) neglecting clustering information during positive/negative sample pair construction, and 2) introducing unreasonable inductive biases, e.g., destroying time dependence and periodicity through augmentation strategies, compromising representation quality. This paper, therefore, proposes a Temporal-Frequency Enhanced Contrastive (TFEC) learning framework. To preserve temporal structure while generating low-distortion representations, a temporal-frequency Co-EnHancement (CoEH) mechanism is introduced. Accordingly, a synergistic dual-path representation and cluster distribution learning framework is designed to jointly optimize cluster structure and representation fidelity. Experiments on six real-world benchmark datasets demonstrate TFEC's superiority, achieving 4.48% average NMI gains over SOTA methods, with ablation studies validating the design. The code of the paper is available at: https://github.com/yueliangy/TFEC.

Optimizing Parallel Schemes with Lyapunov Exponents and kNN-LLE Estimation

Inverse parallel schemes remain indispensable tools for computing the roots of nonlinear systems, yet their dynamical behavior can be unexpectedly rich, ranging from strong contraction to oscillatory or chaotic transients depending on the choice of algorithmic parameters and initial states. A unified analytical-data-driven methodology for identifying, measuring, and reducing such instabilities in a family of uni-parametric inverse parallel solvers is presented in this study. On the theoretical side, we derive stability and bifurcation characterizations of the underlying iterative maps, identifying parameter regions associated with periodic or chaotic behavior. On the computational side, we introduce a micro-series pipeline based on kNN-driven estimation of the local largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE), applied to scalar time series derived from solver trajectories. The resulting sliding-window Lyapunov profiles provide fine-grained, real-time diagnostics of contractive or unstable phases and reveal transient behaviors not captured by coarse linearized analysis. Leveraging this correspondence, we introduce a Lyapunov-informed parameter selection strategy that identifies solver settings associated with stable behavior, particularly when the estimated LLE indicates persistent instability. Comprehensive experiments on ensembles of perturbed initial guesses demonstrate close agreement between the theoretical stability diagrams and empirical Lyapunov profiles, and show that the proposed adaptive mechanism significantly improves robustness. The study establishes micro-series Lyapunov analysis as a practical, interpretable tool for constructing self-stabilizing root-finding schemes and opens avenues for extending such diagnostics to higher-dimensional or noise-contaminated problems.

A Proposed Paradigm for Imputing Missing Multi-Sensor Data in the Healthcare Domain

Chronic diseases such as diabetes pose significant management challenges, particularly due to the risk of complications like hypoglycemia, which require timely detection and intervention. Continuous health monitoring through wearable sensors offers a promising solution for early prediction of glycemic events. However, effective use of multisensor data is hindered by issues such as signal noise and frequent missing values. This study examines the limitations of existing datasets and emphasizes the temporal characteristics of key features relevant to hypoglycemia prediction. A comprehensive analysis of imputation techniques is conducted, focusing on those employed in state-of-the-art studies. Furthermore, imputation methods derived from machine learning and deep learning applications in other healthcare contexts are evaluated for their potential to address longer gaps in time-series data. Based on this analysis, a systematic paradigm is proposed, wherein imputation strategies are tailored to the nature of specific features and the duration of missing intervals. The review concludes by emphasizing the importance of investigating the temporal dynamics of individual features and the implementation of multiple, feature-specific imputation techniques to effectively address heterogeneous temporal patterns inherent in the data.

GO-OSC and VASH: Geometry-Aware Representation Learning for Early Degradation Detection in Oscillatory Systems

Early-stage degradation in oscillatory systems often manifests as geometric distortions of the dynamics, such as phase jitter, frequency drift, or loss of coherence, long before changes in signal energy are detectable. In this regime, classical energy-based diagnostics and unconstrained learned representations are structurally insensitive, leading to delayed or unstable detection. We introduce GO-OSC, a geometry-aware representation learning framework for oscillatory time series that enforces a canonical and identifiable latent parameterization, enabling stable comparison and aggregation across short, unlabeled windows. Building on this representation, we define a family of invariant linear geometric probes that target degradation-relevant directions in latent space. We provide theoretical results showing that under early phase-only degradation, energy-based statistics have zero first-order detection power, whereas geometric probes achieve strictly positive sensitivity. Our analysis characterizes when and why linear probing fails under non-identifiable representations and shows how canonicalization restores statistical detectability. Experiments on synthetic benchmarks and real vibration datasets validate the theory, demonstrating earlier detection, improved data efficiency, and robustness to operating condition changes.

UniPACT: A Multimodal Framework for Prognostic Question Answering on Raw ECG and Structured EHR

Accurate clinical prognosis requires synthesizing structured Electronic Health Records (EHRs) with real-time physiological signals like the Electrocardiogram (ECG). Large Language Models (LLMs) offer a powerful reasoning engine for this task but struggle to natively process these heterogeneous, non-textual data types. To address this, we propose UniPACT (Unified Prognostic Question Answering for Clinical Time-series), a unified framework for prognostic question answering that bridges this modality gap. UniPACT's core contribution is a structured prompting mechanism that converts numerical EHR data into semantically rich text. This textualized patient context is then fused with representations learned directly from raw ECG waveforms, enabling an LLM to reason over both modalities holistically. We evaluate UniPACT on the comprehensive MDS-ED benchmark, it achieves a state-of-the-art mean AUROC of 89.37% across a diverse set of prognostic tasks including diagnosis, deterioration, ICU admission, and mortality, outperforming specialized baselines. Further analysis demonstrates that our multimodal, multi-task approach is critical for performance and provides robustness in missing data scenarios.

Scalable Cloud-Native Architectures for Intelligent PMU Data Processing

Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) generate high-frequency, time-synchronized data essential for real-time power grid monitoring, yet the growing scale of PMU deployments creates significant challenges in latency, scalability, and reliability. Conventional centralized processing architectures are increasingly unable to handle the volume and velocity of PMU data, particularly in modern grids with dynamic operating conditions. This paper presents a scalable cloud-native architecture for intelligent PMU data processing that integrates artificial intelligence with edge and cloud computing. The proposed framework employs distributed stream processing, containerized microservices, and elastic resource orchestration to enable low-latency ingestion, real-time anomaly detection, and advanced analytics. Machine learning models for time-series analysis are incorporated to enhance grid observability and predictive capabilities. Analytical models are developed to evaluate system latency, throughput, and reliability, showing that the architecture can achieve sub-second response times while scaling to large PMU deployments. Security and privacy mechanisms are embedded to support deployment in critical infrastructure environments. The proposed approach provides a robust and flexible foundation for next-generation smart grid analytics.

Kolmogorov Arnold Networks and Multi-Layer Perceptrons: A Paradigm Shift in Neural Modelling

The research undertakes a comprehensive comparative analysis of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KAN) and Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLP), highlighting their effectiveness in solving essential computational challenges like nonlinear function approximation, time-series prediction, and multivariate classification. Rooted in Kolmogorov's representation theorem, KANs utilize adaptive spline-based activation functions and grid-based structures, providing a transformative approach compared to traditional neural network frameworks. Utilizing a variety of datasets spanning mathematical function estimation (quadratic and cubic) to practical uses like predicting daily temperatures and categorizing wines, the proposed research thoroughly assesses model performance via accuracy measures like Mean Squared Error (MSE) and computational expense assessed through Floating Point Operations (FLOPs). The results indicate that KANs reliably exceed MLPs in every benchmark, attaining higher predictive accuracy with significantly reduced computational costs. Such an outcome highlights their ability to maintain a balance between computational efficiency and accuracy, rendering them especially beneficial in resource-limited and real-time operational environments. By elucidating the architectural and functional distinctions between KANs and MLPs, the paper provides a systematic framework for selecting the most suitable neural architectures for specific tasks. Furthermore, the proposed study highlights the transformative capabilities of KANs in progressing intelligent systems, influencing their use in situations that require both interpretability and computational efficiency.

Insight Miner: A Time Series Analysis Dataset for Cross-Domain Alignment with Natural Language

Time-series data is critical across many scientific and industrial domains, including environmental analysis, agriculture, transportation, and finance. However, mining insights from this data typically requires deep domain expertise, a process that is both time-consuming and labor-intensive. In this paper, we propose \textbf{Insight Miner}, a large-scale multimodal model (LMM) designed to generate high-quality, comprehensive time-series descriptions enriched with domain-specific knowledge. To facilitate this, we introduce \textbf{TS-Insights}\footnote{Available at \href{https://huggingface.co/datasets/zhykoties/time-series-language-alignment}{https://huggingface.co/datasets/zhykoties/time-series-language-alignment}.}, the first general-domain dataset for time series and language alignment. TS-Insights contains 100k time-series windows sampled from 20 forecasting datasets. We construct this dataset using a novel \textbf{agentic workflow}, where we use statistical tools to extract features from raw time series before synthesizing them into coherent trend descriptions with GPT-4. Following instruction tuning on TS-Insights, Insight Miner outperforms state-of-the-art multimodal models, such as LLaVA \citep{liu2023llava} and GPT-4, in generating time-series descriptions and insights. Our findings suggest a promising direction for leveraging LMMs in time series analysis, and serve as a foundational step toward enabling LLMs to interpret time series as a native input modality.

XGBoost Forecasting of NEPSE Index Log Returns with Walk Forward Validation

This study develops a robust machine learning framework for one-step-ahead forecasting of daily log-returns in the Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) Index using the XGBoost regressor. A comprehensive feature set is engineered, including lagged log-returns (up to 30 days) and established technical indicators such as short- and medium-term rolling volatility measures and the 14-period Relative Strength Index. Hyperparameter optimization is performed using Optuna with time-series cross-validation on the initial training segment. Out-of-sample performance is rigorously assessed via walk-forward validation under both expanding and fixed-length rolling window schemes across multiple lag configurations, simulating real-world deployment and avoiding lookahead bias. Predictive accuracy is evaluated using root mean squared error, mean absolute error, coefficient of determination (R-squared), and directional accuracy on both log-returns and reconstructed closing prices. Empirical results show that the optimal configuration, an expanding window with 20 lags, outperforms tuned ARIMA and Ridge regression benchmarks, achieving the lowest log-return RMSE (0.013450) and MAE (0.009814) alongside a directional accuracy of 65.15%. While the R-squared remains modest, consistent with the noisy nature of financial returns, primary emphasis is placed on relative error reduction and directional prediction. Feature importance analysis and visual inspection further enhance interpretability. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of gradient boosting ensembles in modeling nonlinear dynamics in volatile emerging market time series and establish a reproducible benchmark for NEPSE Index forecasting.

DriftGuard: A Hierarchical Framework for Concept Drift Detection and Remediation in Supply Chain Forecasting

Supply chain forecasting models degrade over time as real-world conditions change. Promotions shift, consumer preferences evolve, and supply disruptions alter demand patterns, causing what is known as concept drift. This silent degradation leads to stockouts or excess inventory without triggering any system warnings. Current industry practice relies on manual monitoring and scheduled retraining every 3-6 months, which wastes computational resources during stable periods while missing rapid drift events. Existing academic methods focus narrowly on drift detection without addressing diagnosis or remediation, and they ignore the hierarchical structure inherent in supply chain data. What retailers need is an end-to-end system that detects drift early, explains its root causes, and automatically corrects affected models. We propose DriftGuard, a five-module framework that addresses the complete drift lifecycle. The system combines an ensemble of four complementary detection methods, namely error-based monitoring, statistical tests, autoencoder anomaly detection, and Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) change-point analysis, with hierarchical propagation analysis to identify exactly where drift occurs across product lines. Once detected, Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) analysis diagnoses the root causes, and a cost-aware retraining strategy selectively updates only the most affected models. Evaluated on over 30,000 time series from the M5 retail dataset, DriftGuard achieves 97.8% detection recall within 4.2 days and delivers up to 417 return on investment through targeted remediation.