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Calendar encoding significantly impacts time series model accuracy, study finds

A new study published on arXiv investigates the impact of different calendar feature encoding methods on the accuracy of time series foundation models (TSFMs). Researchers found that the chosen encoding strategy significantly affects forecast accuracy, with differences up to 83% on holidays for certain model-encoding combinations. The study systematically compared seven calendar encodings across four state-of-the-art TSFMs using nine diverse datasets, highlighting that improvements are most pronounced around holidays where calendar information offers unique signals. The findings suggest that current benchmarks may distort model comparisons due to fixed encoding strategies. AI

IMPACT Highlights the importance of feature engineering for time series models, potentially improving forecasting accuracy in various domains.

RANK_REASON Academic paper published on arXiv detailing research findings. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]

Read on arXiv cs.LG →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

Calendar encoding significantly impacts time series model accuracy, study finds

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Academic paper published on arXiv detailing research findings. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. arXiv cs.LG TIER_1 English(EN) · Alexander Kreusel, Maximilian Beichter, Alexandra Nikoltchovska, Benjamin Sch\"afer, Ralf Mikut, Frederik Zahn, Veit Hagenmeyer ·

    On the Encoding of Calendar Features in Covariate-Informed Time Series Foundation Models

    arXiv:2610.13676v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Time series foundation models (TSFMs) increasingly offer covariate support, with calendar information being the most common type of categorical covariate in practice, as it is available for every point in time. However, how these fe…