LSTM and Transformer
LSTM and Transformer
LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) is a type of Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), designed to
better handle sequences of data, making it especially powerful for tasks such as time-series
forecasting, natural language processing (NLP), and speech recognition. LSTMs address the
vanishing gradient problem, which is a common challenge in traditional RNNs when training
on long sequences. Its ability to retain long-term dependencies and mitigate the vanishing
gradient problem makes them a vital component in modern deep learning.
LSTM Works:
Time Steps: At each time step, the LSTM looks at the previous hidden state, the previous
cell state, and the current input to decide what information to keep, update, or discard. This
allows it to capture long-term dependencies in sequences.
Memory Retention: The key feature of LSTMs is their ability to retain information over long
periods, mitigating the vanishing gradient problem that traditional RNNs suffer from when
dealing with long sequences.
Input → Forget Gate (f(t)) → Input Gate (i(t)) → Candidate Cell State (𝒸(t)) → Update
Cell State (C(t)) → Output Gate (o(t)) → Hidden State (h(t)) → Next Time Step/Output.
Data Quantity: LSTMs require a large amount of data to train effectively, and the quality
of the data directly impacts model performance.
Tuning: Choosing the right hyperparameters (e.g., number of layers, units per layer,
learning rate) can be challenging and may require extensive experimentation.
Overfitting: LSTMs are prone to overfitting, especially when the model has too many
parameters relative to the amount of training data. Regularization techniques like
dropout and early stopping can be used to mitigate overfitting.
Hybrid Models: Combining LSTM with other techniques like CNN (Convolutional Neural
Networks) or attention mechanisms has shown to improve performance in some time
series tasks.
Transfer Learning: Pre-trained LSTM models on one dataset can be fine-tuned for
similar tasks, reducing the need for large amounts of task-specific data.
Autoencoders: LSTM-based autoencoders have been used for anomaly detection in
time series data.
Transformers
Transformers have revolutionized time series forecasting, offering an efficient, scalable, and
highly flexible approach for capturing complex dependencies and patterns in sequential data.
Their ability to process data in parallel, learn from long-range dependencies, and handle multi-
dimensional input has made them a powerful tool in various fields such as finance, weather
forecasting, energy prediction, and anomaly detection. As evolution, new variants like Informer,
auto former, and Reformer continue to improve their performance and computational
efficiency, making transformers a go-to architecture for time series tasks.
Input Time Series Data → Positional Encoding Added → Encoder Layers (Self-Attention + MLP)
→ Contextualized Embedding → Decoder Layers (Masked Attention + Cross-Attention) →
Output Layer (Forecasted Time Series)