It may occur after very few solutions, leading to a problem of change-point detection from small data sets. Typical processes of learning and development consist of several phases, separated by change points.
Some phases are rather short.
Fast learning, for example, is associated with frequent changes of strategies. They possess a number of desired properties, not satisfied by procedures proposed in the earlier literature. One of them is distribution-consistency. Unlike the traditional concept of consistency, it implies convergence of change-point estimators to the corresponding parameters as the magnitude of a change tends to infinity. Traffic engineering is a fundamental area in telecommunication network analysis and design.