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There has been a lot of speculation over the years about the quality of the optimization solvers in SAS/OR, in particular the mixed integer linear optimization (MILP) solver. Measuring the performance of optimization solvers and comparing different solvers on a test set is a crucial part of modern optimization solver development.
Let me make this clear right from the start: I needed to answer 44 of the 62 exam questions correctly to earn my BASE SAS Programmer certification, and I got exactly 44 right. No margin of error. I never thought I’d be proud of a 70%, but I’m more than
Displaying nicely rendered axis values reduces clutter and makes the graph more readable. With SAS 9.4, we added the ability for splitting x-axis tick values on white space to create a nice and readable x-axis as shown in the graph on the right. It is always a challenge to fit
In some applications, you need to optimize a linear objective function of many variables, subject to linear constraints. Solving this problem is called linear programming or linear optimization. This article shows two ways to solve linear programming problems in SAS: You can use the OPTMODEL procedure in SAS/OR software or
A multilabel format enables you to assign multiple labels to a value or a range of values. The capability to add multilabel formats was added to the FORMAT procedure in SAS® 8.2. You assign multiple labels by specifying the MULTILABEL option in the VALUE statement of PROC FORMAT. For example,
"Two weeks to go," Santa said to himself, with millions of toys stacked up on the shelves. Each year worry hit at the same time – "How do I get the right toy to the right child without losing my mind?" Though Old St. Nick didn't have a computer science degree, deep down
I recently met Mrs. Claus at the INFORMS Annual Meeting, where we got to talking about the social network analysis session she’d just attended. It turns out Mrs. Claus and I are both fans of a book by Alex Pentland, Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter. Apparently
During a data quality assessment, one of my clients discovered that a large chunk of data that ultimately fed into their business analytics engine was sourced externally. After examining the contracts surrounding this data, I found that 100% of it failed to possess service-level agreements (SLAs) for the quality of
Ready for another (soon to be classic) fun, custom-made for IT holiday jingle?? Fire up the hot chocolate, gather around the water cooler and belt this one out at the upcoming office party: Have a holly, jolly smart grid It's about time we upgraded our electric infrastructure I don't know
Some observant readers may have noticed a new icon on the right sidebar of this blog announcing the release of the new SAS Press book on the ODS Graphics Designer, written in collaboration with Jeanette Bottitta. Jeanette is a Technical Writer at SAS and has worked on various SAS Graphics products
Imagine making $50K a day out of thin air. Did you know that NASDAQ routinely processes around 10,000,000 trades a day? What if instead of rounding cents for each transaction, market makers truncated fractions of cents in the amount they owe you? Under the assumption that each transaction, on average,
The financial crisis led to a deep reflection on the things that Banks and other financial institutions were doing wrong. The most significant factor that led to bad business decisions and in extend the results that we have all been experiencing the past few years, was uninformed analytics. This is
“Analytics” and “data scientist” aren’t new terms, but they are trending buzzwords. The popularity of these concepts has created a false impression: Analytics are mysterious abstractions that can only be decoded if you have a white lab coat and an advanced degree in computer science. The reality couldn’t be more different.
La intuición ya no es la mejor consejera a la hora de tomar importantes decisiones de negocio. Los empresarios de antes lanzaban un nuevo producto al mercado basados en su ‘olfato de negocios’; abrían un nuevo local después de contar manualmente cuántas personas transitaban por el frente del local; y
La intuición ya no es la mejor consejera a la hora de tomar importantes decisiones de negocio. Los empresarios de antes lanzaban un nuevo producto al mercado basados en su ‘olfato de negocios’; abrían un nuevo local después de contar manualmente cuántas personas transitaban por el frente del local; y