Sequential Change Diagnosis Revisited and the Adaptive Matrix CuSum

The problem of sequential change diagnosis is considered, where observations are obtained on-line, an abrupt change occurs in their distribution, and the goal is to quickly detect the change and accurately identify the post-change distribution, while controlling the false alarm rate. A finite set of alternatives is postulated for the post-change regime, but no prior information is assumed for the unknown change-point. A drawback of many algorithms that have been proposed for this problem is the implicit use of pre-change data for determining the post-change distribution. This can lead to very large conditional probabilities of misidentification, given that there was no false alarm, unless the change occurs soon after monitoring begins. A novel, recursive algorithm is proposed and shown to resolve this issue without the use of additional tuning parameters and without sacrificing control of the worst-case delay in Lorden's sense. A theoretical analysis is conducted for a general family of sequential change diagnosis procedures, which supports the proposed algorithm and revises certain state-of-the-art results. Additionally, a novel, comprehensive method is proposed for the design and evaluation of sequential change diagnosis algorithms. This method is illustrated with simulation studies, where existing procedures are compared to the proposed.