Selected research example
Archer Heights license records: a two-year renewal cycle, not a business-collapse measure
All categories · all other available filters
24-month frequency comparison
Annual-only flag · window-sensitive review context. The two-year comparison does not qualify for the frequency ranking. The annual evidence is retained below, not erased.
- October 2022–September 2024
- 375
- October 2024–September 2026
- 337
- Change in monthly mean
- -1.58
The two windows each contain 24 complete covered months. The magnitude of the change is 1.11-fold. These are published license records, not a population-adjusted rate. Fixed windows do not establish a breakpoint, remove all seasonal effects or prove a renewal explanation.
12-month comparison · context, not the business ranking
- October 2024–September 2025
- 218
- October 2025–September 2026
- 119
- Change in monthly mean
- -8.25
This annual comparison crosses the original screening gates. Two-year renewal schedules can put a pulse in one annual window and not the other. Opposing directions or threshold sensitivity can have other explanations; an annual-only label is not proof of a renewal cycle.
How to read this example
The original annual screen flagged 218 records in October 2024–September 2025 versus 119 in October 2025–September 2026: a 45.4% decrease. The arithmetic is correct, but the comparison crosses a major renewal year and an off-cycle year. Under the revised method this is annual-only review context, not a qualifying frequency candidate. Analyze also reported no clear change in celeration.
June totals were 191 in 2017, 171 in 2019, 142 in 2021, 128 in 2023 and 121 in 2025, compared with 10 in June 2026. The original checksummed daily aggregates place 118 of June 2025’s 121 records on June 16. A separate bounded publisher lookup on November 9, 2026 returned the same 118 records, all marked RENEW: 114 expire June 15, 2027 and four June 15, 2026. This corroborates a concentrated two-year renewal pulse; it does not refresh the entire frozen dataset.
June accounts for a decrease of 111 records, more than the annual net decrease of 99. The other eleven months combined increase from 97 to 109. Excluding June here is a post-hoc explanatory check, not the screening rule and not a formally adjusted trend.
Complete two-year windows give 375 records in October 2022–September 2024 and 337 in October 2024–September 2026, a 10.1% decrease and a monthly-mean difference of −1.58. Neither the 1.5-fold nor five-per-month gate is met. Some decline remains, but license records include multiple licenses and renewals per establishment; this cannot establish how many businesses closed.
This investigation motivated a rule applied to all business conditions, not a special exclusion for Archer Heights. It remains exploratory and was developed after seeing this example. Other annual-only flags need their own interpretation; they have not all been verified as renewal cycles.
Bounded publisher follow-up
Queried November 9, 2026. Reproduce the aggregate renewal query at the City source (the publisher may revise its result). The saved response is included separately in the evidence download.
- 4 records · RENEW · expiration June 15, 2026
- 114 records · RENEW · expiration June 15, 2027
Saved observations and fitted phases
No clear change in celeration under this rule. This does not mean counts were constant.
Suggested trend · exploratory · per six months
- 1 · Oct 2016–Sep 2026×1.02Direction uncertain · 1 zero fitted as 1
Check the evidence
Interpretation and limitations (13)
- Exploratory description, not a forecast, causal explanation or proof of a change.
- Approximate 95% factor intervals assume independent, constant-variance log residuals and fixed boundaries. They do not account for boundary search, serial dependence or source revisions.
- Confirmed zeros are treated as 1 only for fitting and its diagnostics. Raw counts stay zero; low-count results depend on this convention.
- Independent phase lines may jump at boundaries. Every observation belongs to exactly one phase.
- Reporting, classifications and seasonality can change. Counts are not population-adjusted; a level shift without a slope change is not the target of this search.
- Uses dated last-good cached data, not newly verified source counts.
- 1 confirmed zero fitted as 1; raw counts remain zero. Low-count trends are sensitive to this adjustment.
- At least one factor interval includes 1; its direction is uncertain under this approximation.
- License records include renewals and use license-term dates. Category/ward changes and administrative practice can affect counts; these are not business openings, closures or employment.
- Business frequency screening compares adjacent 24-month windows, requiring 48 complete months. The 12-month comparison is context only. Fixed two-year windows reduce renewal-calendar mismatch; they are not seasonal adjustment, proof of a renewal mechanism, or a test of stability.
- Window assessment: annual-only. Annual-only flags do not enter the frequency ranking. Opposite directions and short history must not be described as persistent changes.
- Many dependent filter conditions were searched. No multiple-testing-adjusted significance or causal attribution is claimed.
- Frequency compares fixed equal-length windows of raw counts, not population risk or a celeration-factor ratio. Reporting, classifications and exposure may have changed.
Phase diagnostics
| Phase | Start–end | Months | Factor / six months | Conditional 95% interval | Zeros fitted as 1 | Lag-one residual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | October 2016–September 2026 | 120 | ×1.02 | 0.9926–1.040 | 1 | 0.110 |
Exact monthly observations (120 slots)
| Month | Raw count | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| September 2026 | 12 | complete |
| August 2026 | 9 | complete |
| July 2026 | 9 | complete |
| June 2026 | 10 | complete |
| May 2026 | 12 | complete |
| April 2026 | 8 | complete |
| March 2026 | 6 | complete |
| February 2026 | 10 | complete |
| January 2026 | 6 | complete |
| December 2025 | 15 | complete |
| November 2025 | 11 | complete |
| October 2025 | 11 | complete |
| September 2025 | 7 | complete |
| August 2025 | 8 | complete |
| July 2025 | 8 | complete |
| June 2025 | 121 | complete |
| May 2025 | 13 | complete |
| April 2025 | 7 | complete |
| March 2025 | 12 | complete |
| February 2025 | 10 | complete |
| January 2025 | 8 | complete |
| December 2024 | 10 | complete |
| November 2024 | 5 | complete |
| October 2024 | 9 | complete |
| September 2024 | 14 | complete |
| August 2024 | 10 | complete |
| July 2024 | 11 | complete |
| June 2024 | 12 | complete |
| May 2024 | 16 | complete |
| April 2024 | 9 | complete |
| March 2024 | 7 | complete |
| February 2024 | 19 | complete |
| January 2024 | 9 | complete |
| December 2023 | 18 | complete |
| November 2023 | 9 | complete |
| October 2023 | 13 | complete |
| September 2023 | 15 | complete |
| August 2023 | 9 | complete |
| July 2023 | 14 | complete |
| June 2023 | 128 | complete |
| May 2023 | 13 | complete |
| April 2023 | 9 | complete |
| March 2023 | 10 | complete |
| February 2023 | 11 | complete |
| January 2023 | 5 | complete |
| December 2022 | 6 | complete |
| November 2022 | 4 | complete |
| October 2022 | 4 | complete |
| September 2022 | 10 | complete |
| August 2022 | 10 | complete |
| July 2022 | 10 | complete |
| June 2022 | 10 | complete |
| May 2022 | 16 | complete |
| April 2022 | 12 | complete |
| March 2022 | 7 | complete |
| February 2022 | 9 | complete |
| January 2022 | 8 | complete |
| December 2021 | 14 | complete |
| November 2021 | 14 | complete |
| October 2021 | 8 | complete |
| September 2021 | 10 | complete |
| August 2021 | 10 | complete |
| July 2021 | 13 | complete |
| June 2021 | 142 | complete |
| May 2021 | 11 | complete |
| April 2021 | 9 | complete |
| March 2021 | 6 | complete |
| February 2021 | 5 | complete |
| January 2021 | 8 | complete |
| December 2020 | 5 | complete |
| November 2020 | 3 | complete |
| October 2020 | 4 | complete |
| September 2020 | 9 | complete |
| August 2020 | 11 | complete |
| July 2020 | 8 | complete |
| June 2020 | 11 | complete |
| May 2020 | 13 | complete |
| April 2020 | 9 | complete |
| March 2020 | 0 | complete |
| February 2020 | 13 | complete |
| January 2020 | 16 | complete |
| December 2019 | 10 | complete |
| November 2019 | 10 | complete |
| October 2019 | 6 | complete |
| September 2019 | 11 | complete |
| August 2019 | 9 | complete |
| July 2019 | 10 | complete |
| June 2019 | 171 | complete |
| May 2019 | 8 | complete |
| April 2019 | 9 | complete |
| March 2019 | 8 | complete |
| February 2019 | 2 | complete |
| January 2019 | 9 | complete |
| December 2018 | 7 | complete |
| November 2018 | 5 | complete |
| October 2018 | 7 | complete |
| September 2018 | 10 | complete |
| August 2018 | 13 | complete |
| July 2018 | 6 | complete |
| June 2018 | 11 | complete |
| May 2018 | 13 | complete |
| April 2018 | 9 | complete |
| March 2018 | 2 | complete |
| February 2018 | 10 | complete |
| January 2018 | 13 | complete |
| December 2017 | 9 | complete |
| November 2017 | 6 | complete |
| October 2017 | 9 | complete |
| September 2017 | 12 | complete |
| August 2017 | 9 | complete |
| July 2017 | 10 | complete |
| June 2017 | 191 | complete |
| May 2017 | 8 | complete |
| April 2017 | 7 | complete |
| March 2017 | 9 | complete |
| February 2017 | 3 | complete |
| January 2017 | 6 | complete |
| December 2016 | 6 | complete |
| November 2016 | 4 | complete |
| October 2016 | 7 | complete |
Source and reproducibility
- Publisher dataset
- Business Licenses · City of Chicago
- Source retrieved
- 2026-11-05T21:09:58.696Z
- Publisher update
- 2026-11-05T11:01:01.000Z
- Covered months
- October 2016–September 2026
- Source note
- Source xqx5-8hwx. Joint day/category/hour/applicable-flag/ward/status counts; no addresses, coordinates or incident identifiers. Each year's cells reconcile with an independent source total. Reads are not an atomic publisher snapshot. License records by term start, including renewals; not new businesses. Ward is as published, not reconstructed historical boundaries. Prepared daily community-area snapshot; scheduled rebuild at 06:00 America/Chicago. Full supported history is rechecked for corrections. Retrieval timestamps are preserved; this is not a real-time feed. Local indexed neighborhood snapshot. Totals are for the loaded area before other filters, not citywide totals. Citywide and unassigned-area views use a separate network-backed scope.
- Snapshot
- daily-v1:8a9771a7-dde2-4246-9cf6-d11519e895d6:neighborhood-v2:86fd007b4ddb5a845f1e22273b8c17e7
- Discovery method
- multi-feed-turn-and-frequency-renewal-v2
- Analyze method
- exploratory-segmented-log10-ols-zero-as-one-v3
- Search plan
- a3ffccedeb8d8ce18a30df3636839f775af1e5188e55a1f685695133135c6e35
- Evidence run
- 817ae5c5ce03411a3c5680a546171629f627c699d9ee90e34f35fe1021144814
Challenge the pattern
Check unfiltered totals, comparable communities, source revisions and administrative definitions before treating this candidate as evidence of a real-world explanation. Only explicitly documented follow-ups above have been performed; no others are implied by the ranking. Browse the other business licenses candidates or review the complete screening method.