Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/iii/paper-37/4/iv/solution

Iterating the CUSUM recursion shows that
Thus it searches all possible starting times for a recent stretch of evidence favoring an increase. If adding an increment makes the current sum negative, that accumulated evidence favors the null; retaining it would force a later real deterioration first to repay a deficit accumulated during healthy years. Starting a new candidate segment gives zero instead. Resetting at zero makes detection responsive to a change with unknown onset. Negative values would be permissible for a fixed-start signed log-likelihood ratio, but that is a different statistic from this one-sided tabular CUSUM.

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