STAT551: Project 1 description
Due Thursday, October 14, 2008
This first project is a requirement you must fulfill in order to pass this
course. The general goal of the project is to provide you with experience in
applying time series theory to real data. The project must be typed using
any word processor you prefer, and it must not contain raw computer output.
For this project, you must use your own data. The data cannot be a data
set found in your textbook. The following are required for this project:
1. Find a nonseasonal time series data set. You must include the complete
reference to your data set in your report. Also, you will need to make
the data available to me if I request it. Include a brief description of
the data in the report.
2. If your data set has any missing observations, explain what caused those
values to be missing and explain how you dealt with the problem.
3. Plot your data versus time. Indicate any important events that have
occurred over the observation period that probably had an effect on
the process.
4. Perform any preliminary analysis necessary to ensure the data set is
stationary (if there is evidence of nonstationarity, try using differencing,
smoothing or polynomial trend removal).
5. Tentatively identify one or more possible models for your time series.
Using R, estimate at least two different tentative models for your data.
Try as many models as are needed until you find one that adequately
describes your data. Include any diagnostic measures you have used.
6. Briefly describe the steps that you followed in arriving at your “final”
model.
1
7. Briefly describe the behavior of the process that you have been studying
and explain what you have learned about this process by studying the
data. The written part of this project should be no more than 2 pages
long.
2