Time Series and Sequential Data
Alan John Dix, Janet Finlay · 2025
The moves in a game of chess, annual Arctic ice extent since the beginning of the industrial era, words in a sentence, finger and hand positions during a mid-air gesture, hospital admissions reports for a patient – there are many types of data where it is not only the values of data items that matter but also the order in which they occur. Often, but not always, the sequence order reflects an underlying time order. Thinking of time order we’ll often use the term ‘event’ for one of the sequential items, but this should be interpreted liberally to include, for example a word in written text.