CATS: Mitigating Correlation Shift for Multivariate Time Series Classification

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lin, Xiao, Zeng, Zhichen, Wei, Tianxin, Liu, Zhining, chen, Yuzhong, Tong, Hanghang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lin, Xiao
Zeng, Zhichen
Wei, Tianxin
Liu, Zhining
chen, Yuzhong
Tong, Hanghang
author_facet Lin, Xiao
Zeng, Zhichen
Wei, Tianxin
Liu, Zhining
chen, Yuzhong
Tong, Hanghang
contents Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) leverages labeled source data to train models for unlabeled target data. Given the prevalence of multivariate time series (MTS) data across various domains, the UDA task for MTS classification has emerged as a critical challenge. However, for MTS data, correlations between variables often vary across domains, whereas most existing UDA works for MTS classification have overlooked this essential characteristic. To bridge this gap, we introduce a novel domain shift, {\em correlation shift}, measuring domain differences in multivariate correlation. To mitigate correlation shift, we propose a scalable and parameter-efficient \underline{C}orrelation \underline{A}dapter for M\underline{TS} (CATS). Designed as a plug-and-play technique compatible with various Transformer variants, CATS employs temporal convolution to capture local temporal patterns and a graph attention module to model the changing multivariate correlation. The adapter reweights the target correlations to align the source correlations with a theoretically guaranteed precision. A correlation alignment loss is further proposed to mitigate correlation shift, bypassing the alignment challenge from the non-i.i.d. nature of MTS data. Extensive experiments on four real-world datasets demonstrate that (1) compared with vanilla Transformer-based models, CATS increases over $10\%$ average accuracy while only adding around $1\%$ parameters, and (2) all Transformer variants equipped with CATS either reach or surpass state-of-the-art baselines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_04283
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CATS: Mitigating Correlation Shift for Multivariate Time Series Classification
Lin, Xiao
Zeng, Zhichen
Wei, Tianxin
Liu, Zhining
chen, Yuzhong
Tong, Hanghang
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) leverages labeled source data to train models for unlabeled target data. Given the prevalence of multivariate time series (MTS) data across various domains, the UDA task for MTS classification has emerged as a critical challenge. However, for MTS data, correlations between variables often vary across domains, whereas most existing UDA works for MTS classification have overlooked this essential characteristic. To bridge this gap, we introduce a novel domain shift, {\em correlation shift}, measuring domain differences in multivariate correlation. To mitigate correlation shift, we propose a scalable and parameter-efficient \underline{C}orrelation \underline{A}dapter for M\underline{TS} (CATS). Designed as a plug-and-play technique compatible with various Transformer variants, CATS employs temporal convolution to capture local temporal patterns and a graph attention module to model the changing multivariate correlation. The adapter reweights the target correlations to align the source correlations with a theoretically guaranteed precision. A correlation alignment loss is further proposed to mitigate correlation shift, bypassing the alignment challenge from the non-i.i.d. nature of MTS data. Extensive experiments on four real-world datasets demonstrate that (1) compared with vanilla Transformer-based models, CATS increases over $10\%$ average accuracy while only adding around $1\%$ parameters, and (2) all Transformer variants equipped with CATS either reach or surpass state-of-the-art baselines.
title CATS: Mitigating Correlation Shift for Multivariate Time Series Classification
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.04283