Does anyone write paper checks anymore? According to researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (Greene, et al., 2020), the use of paper checks has declined 63% among US consumers since the year 2000. The researchers surveyed more than 3,000 consumers in 2017-2018 and discovered that only 7% of
Today, a business disruption can stem from just about any type of event — a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, economic pressures, critical skillset shortages or changes in market or investor evaluation criteria. Only resilient companies can ride out the turbulence and quickly bounce back. But with the ongoing pace of change, making
In ordinary least squares regression, there is an explicit formula for the confidence limit of the predicted mean. That is, for any observed value of the explanatory variables, you can create a 95% confidence interval (CI) for the predicted response. This formula assumes that the model is correctly specified and
The acceptance-rejection method (sometimes called rejection sampling) is a method that enables you to generate a random sample from an arbitrary distribution by using only the probability density function (PDF). This is in contrast to the inverse CDF method, which uses the cumulative distribution function (CDF) to generate a random
There are dozens of common probability distributions for a continuous univariate random variable. Familiar examples include the normal, exponential, uniform, gamma, and beta distributions. Where did these distributions come from? Well, some mathematician needed a model for a stochastic process and wrote down the equation for the distribution, typically by
A previous article shows an example of a Markov chain model and computes the probability that the system ends up in a terminal state (called an absorbing state). As explained previously, you can often compute exact probabilities for questions about Markov chains. Nevertheless, it can be useful to know how
The analytics are mind boggling. But the story isn’t analytics. The designs will wow you. But the story isn’t design. The story, as it has been in each of the past 10 years, is that these amazing analytical designs sprang from the minds of students – North Carolina State University
Real-world data often exhibits extreme skewness. It is not unusual to have data span many orders of magnitude. Classic examples are the distributions of incomes (impoverished and billionaires) and population sizes (small countries and populous nations). The readership of books and blog posts show a similar distribution, which is sometimes
The pandemic caused public health agencies and life sciences companies to scramble to find effective treatments. Exploring the efficacy of existing drugs to treat COVID, an example of what's known as drug repurposing, was an intense focus for Qais Hatim, a Data Scientist at the US Food and Drug Administration
The reverberations of SVB’s collapse continue to be felt in the banking industry. Markets remain jittery and the negative news headlines keep coming. First Republic Bank had its credit rating downgraded into junk territory by S&P Global, causing its share price to plummet by 47 percent before rallying. On the
The "Teacher’s Corner" of The American Statistician enables statisticians to discuss topics that are relevant to teaching and learning statistics. Sometimes, the articles have practical relevance, too. Andersson (2023) "The Wald Confidence Interval for a Binomial p as an Illuminating 'Bad' Example," is intended for professors and masters-level students in
A SAS user asked how to interpret a rank-based correlation such as a Spearman correlation or a Kendall correlation. These are alternative measures to the usual Pearson product-moment correlation, which is widely used. The programmer knew that words like "weak," "moderate," and "strong" are sometimes used to describe the Pearson
Consumer goods manufacturers have faced significant challenges over the past few years due to rapidly changing demand and supply disruptions in their end-to-end supply chain. As a result, manufacturers have realized the need to strengthen their resilience and have prioritized assessing their manufacturing capacity to maximize output and automation. To
Most homeowners know that large home improvement projects can take longer than you expect. Whether it's remodeling a kitchen, adding a deck, or landscaping a yard, big projects are expensive and subject to a lot of uncertainty. Factors such as weather, the availability of labor, and the supply of materials,
A previous article describes the metalog distribution (Keelin, 2016). The metalog distribution is a flexible family of distributions that can model a wide range of shapes for data distributions. The metalog system can model bounded, semibounded, and unbounded continuous distributions. This article shows how to use the metalog distribution in
A SAS programmer wanted to compute the distribution of X-Y, where X and Y are two beta-distributed random variables. Pham-Gia and Turkkan (1993) derive a formula for the PDF of this distribution. Unfortunately, the PDF involves evaluating a two-dimensional generalized hypergeometric function, which is not available in all programming languages.
The metalog family of distributions (Keelin, Decision Analysis, 2016) is a flexible family that can model a wide range of continuous univariate data distributions when the data-generating mechanism is unknown. This article provides an overview of the metalog distributions. A subsequent article shows how to download and use a library
SAS programmers love to make special graphs for Valentine's Day. In fact, there is a long history of heart-shaped graphs and love-inspired programs written in SAS! Last year, I added to the collection by showing how a ball bounces on a heart-shaped billiards table. This year, I create a similar
This article is about how to use Git to share SAS programs, specifically how to share libraries of SAS IML functions. Some IML programmers might remember an earlier way to share libraries of functions: SAS/IML released "packages" in SAS 9.4m3 (2015), which enable you to create, document, share, and use
Time series data is widely used in various fields, such as finance, economics, and engineering. One of the key challenges when working with time series data is detecting level shifts. A level shift occurs when the time series’ mean and/or variance changes abruptly. These shifts can significantly impact the analysis and forecasting of the time series and must be detected and handled properly.
A previous article shows that you can use the Intercept parameter to control the ratio of events to nonevents in a simulation of data from a logistic regression model. If you decrease the intercept parameter, the probability of the event decreases; if you increase the intercept parameter, the probability of
This article shows that you can use the intercept parameter to control the probability of the event in a simulation study that involves a binary logistic regression model. For simplicity, I will simulate data from a logistic regression model that involves only one explanatory variable, but the main idea applies
In a previous article, I presented some of the most popular blog posts from 2022. In general, popular articles deal with elementary topics that have broad appeal. However, I also write articles about advanced topics. The following articles didn't make the Top 10 list, but they deserve a second look.
SAS' Bahar Biller expounds on the idea that stochastic simulations are large-data generation programs for highly complex and dynamic stochastic systems.
A previous article describes how to use SAS IML software to construct common covariance structures that are encountered in mixed models. Each covariance matrix has several parameters, and you want to construct a matrix for any choice of the parameters. After you have constructed the covariance matrix, you can use
In 2022, the world adjusted to and worked to recover from a global pandemic and international conflict that displaced millions of families. Energy costs increased sharply and supply chain issues and other disruptions persisted. This contributed to the highest global inflation rate in decades, prompting a domino effect across economies.
A probabilistic card trick is a trick that succeeds with high probability and does not require any skill from the person performing the trick. I have seen a certain trick mentioned several times on social media. I call it "ladders" or the "ladders game" because it reminds me of the
A SAS programmer was trying to simulate poker hands. He was having difficulty because the sampling scheme for simulating card games requires that you sample without replacement for each hand. In statistics, this is called "simple random sampling." If done properly, it is straightforward to simulate poker hands in SAS.
I recently blogged about how to compute the area of the convex hull of a set of planar points. This article discusses the expected value of the area of the convex hull for n random uniform points in the unit square. The article introduces an exact formula (due to Buchta,
SAS' Bahar Biller and Xi Jiang use the example of a semiconductor manufacturing plant to illustrate the role of sensitivity analysis in assessing supply chain risk.
