Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models

This paper focuses on explaining changes over time in globally sourced annual temporal data with the specific objective of identifying features in black-box models that contribute to these temporal shifts. Leveraging local explanations, a part of explainable machine learning/XAI, can yield explanati...

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Main Authors: Shou Nakano, Yang Liu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-02-01
Series:Mathematics
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/4/626
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author Shou Nakano
Yang Liu
author_facet Shou Nakano
Yang Liu
author_sort Shou Nakano
collection DOAJ
description This paper focuses on explaining changes over time in globally sourced annual temporal data with the specific objective of identifying features in black-box models that contribute to these temporal shifts. Leveraging local explanations, a part of explainable machine learning/XAI, can yield explanations behind a country’s growth or downfall after making economic or social decisions. We employ a Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanation (LIME) to shed light on national happiness indices, economic freedom, and population metrics, spanning variable time frames. Acknowledging the presence of missing values, we employ three imputation approaches to generate robust multivariate temporal datasets apt for LIME’s input requirements. Our methodology’s efficacy is substantiated through a series of empirical evaluations involving multiple datasets. These evaluations include comparative analyses against random feature selection, correlation with real-world events as explained using LIME, and validation through Individual Conditional Expectation (ICE) plots, a state-of-the-art technique proficient in feature importance detection.
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spelling doaj-art-b60fdb4684f94d2aba701209b73913752025-08-20T03:12:05ZengMDPI AGMathematics2227-73902025-02-0113462610.3390/math13040626Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate ModelsShou Nakano0Yang Liu1Physics and Computer Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, CanadaPhysics and Computer Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5, CanadaThis paper focuses on explaining changes over time in globally sourced annual temporal data with the specific objective of identifying features in black-box models that contribute to these temporal shifts. Leveraging local explanations, a part of explainable machine learning/XAI, can yield explanations behind a country’s growth or downfall after making economic or social decisions. We employ a Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanation (LIME) to shed light on national happiness indices, economic freedom, and population metrics, spanning variable time frames. Acknowledging the presence of missing values, we employ three imputation approaches to generate robust multivariate temporal datasets apt for LIME’s input requirements. Our methodology’s efficacy is substantiated through a series of empirical evaluations involving multiple datasets. These evaluations include comparative analyses against random feature selection, correlation with real-world events as explained using LIME, and validation through Individual Conditional Expectation (ICE) plots, a state-of-the-art technique proficient in feature importance detection.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/4/626artificial intelligenceFLAMLimputationLocal Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanationmachine learningXAI
spellingShingle Shou Nakano
Yang Liu
Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models
Mathematics
artificial intelligence
FLAML
imputation
Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanation
machine learning
XAI
title Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models
title_full Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models
title_fullStr Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models
title_full_unstemmed Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models
title_short Interpreting Temporal Shifts in Global Annual Data Using Local Surrogate Models
title_sort interpreting temporal shifts in global annual data using local surrogate models
topic artificial intelligence
FLAML
imputation
Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanation
machine learning
XAI
url https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/4/626
work_keys_str_mv AT shounakano interpretingtemporalshiftsinglobalannualdatausinglocalsurrogatemodels
AT yangliu interpretingtemporalshiftsinglobalannualdatausinglocalsurrogatemodels