Question

explain the advantages and limitations of time series

Answer 1

Time series arise in many applications: in sociological statistics on births, deaths, unemployment, crime, and divorces; in economic statistics on production, interest rates, and exchange rates; in meteorological statistics on temperature, cloud cover, and humidity; in sales statistics; in statistics on defective products produced by a machine, a factory, or an entire company; in traffic statistics on the number of riders using a bus or the number of cars crossing a bridge; in measurements by psychologists on attention or body movement; in physiological measures of heart rate, respiration, and other bodily functions; in measures of river flow taken for flood-control planning; and in many other areas.

A time series may trend upward or downward, as many economic series do, or may fluctuate around a steady mean, as human body temperature does. A series may contain a single cycle, like the daily cycle of body temperature, or may contain several superimposed cycles