In honor of today’s #GivingTuesday, which "harnesses the potential of social media and the generosity of people around the world to bring about real change in their communities,” I’ve been thinking about what constitutes “real change” and the role analytics can play on the many social issues our planet faces.
Has anyone ever broken up with you, and left you thinking "Wow, I didn't see that coming!" In hindsight, maybe you could have seen it coming. At least from a statistical perspective. Let's dive into this topic with some lighthearted discussion, and plot some Facebook data... When it comes to
One aspect of high-quality information is consistency. We often think about consistency in terms of consistent values. A large portion of the effort expended on “data quality dimensions” essentially focuses on data value consistency. For example, when we describe accuracy, what we often mean is consistency with a defined source
In the classic textbook by Johnson and Wichern (Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis, Third Edition, 1992, p. 164), it says: All measures of goodness-of-fit suffer the same serious drawback. When the sample size is small, only the most aberrant behaviors will be identified as lack of fit. On the other hand,
In the DATA step, the WHERE statement and the IF statement (a.k.a. the "subsetting IF") have similar functions. In many scenarios, they produce identical results. But new SAS programmers are taught early on that these two statements work very differently, and in important ways. To understand the differences, it helps
Suppose you are using SAS Studio and the statistical task you need to perform is not a supported option or feature in SAS. I know that sounds almost impossible because the statistical tasks in SAS Studio are so awesome. But, just in case you need to tweak a program or
Der Top-Manager sitzt uns gegenüber und prognostiziert, dass die „kleinen Schnellboote“ unter den IT-Projekten der kommenden Monate ein hohes Gut sein werden. Er ist CIO einer der fünf größten Versicherer in Deutschland und spricht von agilen Projekten mit agilen Teams. Voraussetzung: entsprechende Software, die eine solche Agilität ermöglicht. Und an
Somewhere in my past I encountered a panel of histograms for small random samples of normal data. I can't remember the source, but it might have been from John Tukey or William Cleveland. The point of the panel was to emphasize that (because of sampling variation) a small random sample
Teacher preparation programs have received some pretty harsh criticism in recent years. For example… “If there was any piece of legislation that I could pass it would be to blow up colleges of education.” –Reid Lyon, National Institute of Health “By almost any standard, many if not most of the
Ab 2018 verschärft die EU massiv den Datenschutz. Betroffen ist weltweit jedes Unternehmen, das EU-Bürgern etwas anbietet, ihr Kauf&Klick-Verhalten analysiert oder im Auftrag verarbeitet. Erste Projekte sind bereits gestartet, um die geforderten „angemessenen Maßnahmen“ real auch nachweisen zu können. Denn hohe Strafen und schlechte Presse lauern. Es lockt das Vertrauen
Maybe programming isn’t quite as dangerous as a lightsaber battle, but if you think using SAS to turn data into action feels a little bit like magic, you should know that nobody is better at harnessing “the Force” of DS2 than SAS Jedi Mark Jordan. Mark has a resume that
If you consider yourself as a visualization expert, you strive to create graphs that set you apart from the data analysts and statisticians. Graphs that merely plot the data in a clear/concise manner aren't enough for you. You want your graphs to also be intuitive, easy to read, and provide
Our world is now so awash in data that many organizations have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to available data to support operational, tactical and strategic activities of the enterprise. Such a data-rich environment is highly susceptible to poor-quality data. This is especially true when swimming in data lakes –
A SAS customer asked how to use background colors and a dashed line to emphasize the forecast region for a graph that shows a time series model. The task requires the following steps: Use the ATTRPRIORITY=NONE option on the ODS GRAPHICS statement to make sure that the current ODS style
People say that the world has changed, but I think it'd be more accurate to say that people that have changed the world. Social media, big data, big analytics, internet of things … whether you're an executive, a data scientist, or a student, when you hear these buzzwords, you have
Anyone know what's the number two form of economic crime, in terms of losses? Believe it or not, it's procurement fraud. I grew up in a small town south of “Big D” and in my neck of the woods having two first names is, well, normal. So, when Will Farrell’s character,
Cooperation and information sharing between tax authorities around the world can help ensure that taxpayers pay the right amount of tax to the right jurisdictions. The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is an agreement between countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to collect and share data from their financial institutions annually. This remarkable achievement
There are several ways to buy data, and even more companies who are willing to sell it. By annual subscription or by the drink, third-party data vendors promise they can solve your identity theft and non-compliance problems. It’s as simple as signing a contract, and letting the data tap begin
Recently, my fellow SAS blogger Rick Wicklin wrote a post showing how to graph the ages of all the US presidents. And Chris Hemedinger showed how to create a bar chart showing the number of presidents having each of the 12 zodiac signs. Both are interesting graphs, but I wanted to
At SAS, we've worked hard to transform ourselves into an analytical marketing organization. And it's an ongoing journey. As new tools and data sources appear, we'll continue to grow, change and improve. As the leader of this effort, I wish there had been a how-to guide available when we started
A hot button issue this election season was the need to determine the eligibility of people for various government programs like the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicare and Medicaid, or entry into the United States as a migrant refugee. “Look, we’re facing the worst refugee crisis since the end of
There are no limitations for what you can accomplish. That’s the message Keith Poston from the Friends of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences imparted to 300 middle and high school students, teachers and parents assembled this week at the museum for the fourth STEM Career Showcase for Students
It's that time of year again where almost 50 million Americans travel home for Thanksgiving. We'll share a smorgasbord of turkey, stuffing and vegetables and discuss fun political topics, all to celebrate the ironic friendship between colonists and Native Americans. Being part Italian, my family augments the 20-pound turkey with pasta –
At a conference last week, a presenter showed SAS statements that compute the logarithm of a probability density function (PDF). The log-PDF is a a common computation because it occurs when maximizing the log-likelihood function. The presenter computed the expression in SAS by using an expression that looked like y
Are you the lone-wolf SAS programmer in your company - managing the data, performing the analyses, and graphing the output for everyone else? And what's the only format they all know how to work with, and wish they had your output in? Let's face it ... that's probably an Excel
Rick Wicklin showed us how to visualize the ages of US Presidents at the time of their inaugurations. That's a pretty relevant thing to do, as the age of the incoming president can indirectly influence aspects of the president's term, thanks to health and generational factors. As part of his
International Fraud Awareness Week is here! I know, I know… Fraud Week is not quite as exciting as Shark Week. It doesn’t appeal to your taste buds like Restaurant Week. Nor does it have the quirky feel of Brain Awareness Week (nope… I’m not making that one up!!). Nevertheless, Fraud Week is
Criminal enterprises are tapping into the lucrative opioid business through creative schemes that are less likely to be identified as opioid abuse, misuse or diversion. One of the latest schemes? Auto insurance fraud. First, some background… While extensive progress has been made in establishing, improving, and mandating prescription drug monitoring
On June 22nd, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the largest Medicaid fraud bust in history. The National Health Care Fraud Takedown included 301 defendants charged, $900 million in false billings, 61 medical professionals and 29 doctors, across 36 states. In another case, investigators in New York uncovered more than
Currently, most fraud detection solutions for financial crime and tax fraud are focused on risk assessing entities. That is to say, they evaluate the risk of each individual or businesses separately. While this helps prioritize risk-based investigations by alerting investigators to the likelihood of fraud, it does not necessarily maximize deterrence.
