I watched with wonder as each of my daughters learned how to "tell time." Early in their primary school careers, they brought home worksheets that featured clock faces with big-hand/little-hand configurations that they had to decipher, and exercises that asked them to draw the hands as they should appear given
With so much information available about high-performance analytics, business intelligence and visual analytics, it can be difficult to know exactly where to begin, especially if you don’t have a team of statisticians standing by. I'm frequently asked by customers who hope to take advantage of analytics how to get started. How do
Has this year's flu been better or worse than you thought it would be? There are a lot of factors that help determine whether or not you're likely to get the flu. Is there a bad strain going around? Did the flu vaccine target the right strain? Did you get
In the last few days, I have heard the term “data lake” bandied about in various client conversations. As with all buzz-term simplifications, the concept of a “data lake” seems appealing, particularly when it is implied to mean “a framework enabling general data accessibility for enterprise information assets.” And of
Last week I was chatting with some mathematicians and I mentioned the blog post that I wrote last year on the distribution of Pythagorean triples. In my previous article, I showed that there is an algorithm that uses matrix multiplication to generate every primitive Pythagorean triple by starting with the
I press a button, a miracle machine churns through all the calculations in the world and the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything[1] is produced as a single number. Oh hang on, that’s 42. Alright, for our microcosm, let’s stick to the answer to my
After working as a flight attendant for more than 20 years, Lauren Guevara was ready for a new adventure. The inspiration for her journey came from an article she read in CNN’s Money magazine that highlighted the earning potential of a SAS Certification. Also having earned a Master of Science
This is a follow up to last week’s blog on understanding your customers’ perceptions of quality. As the world’s largest manufacturer of PCs and tablets, Lenovo is always looking for areas to reduce costs while increasing quality and customer satisfaction. Six months ago, Lenovo implemented the Lenovo Early Detection (LED) system
How simple is too simple, when it comes to analyzing data on a map? The KISS principle can be applied to many things, including graphs and maps. What is the KISS principle, you might ask? Well, it's not the rock band that my friend Patricia (pictured below) has been known
Tax fraud…5-7 years in prison. I thought I had it all figured out. The government wades through millions of returns and tries to issue refunds quickly. Sure, I filed over a thousand for my clients, but that’s just a blip on their radar. I never thought I’d get caught. But
Judging by the spike in media coverage of tax fraud, one might think accountants have suddenly been inspired by Breaking Bad re-runs, and turned en masse to lives of crime. Umm… no. But, there are two good reasons for all the attention. One reason is because of a new law
Today is my 600th blog post for The DO Loop. I have written about many topics that are related to statistical programming, math, statistics, simulation, numerical analysis, matrix computations, and more. The right sidebar of my blog contains a tag cloud that links to many topics. What topics do you,
I took another trip to California and, of course, allowed Ed to come with me. San Francisco is an amazing place to visit (especially in March when it’s cold and wet in North Carolina.) On this trip, we met with wonderful group of people, the California Transcribers and Educators for
Small to midsize businesses (SMBs) want to make the most of their data, but many feel they lack the skills and solutions to effectively harness it. However, new technologies and new channels to market are leading to the “democratisation of analytics” making it easily available to all. SMBs cannot
So, how did you first learn SAS programming? Originally, I was self-taught. Many years ago, I learned SAS on the job when a systems programmer quit and I took over supporting a mainframe performance software package that was written in SAS. I got a copy of the Base SAS users
In the 1988 film Beetlejuice, the title character, hilariously portrayed by Michael Keaton, is a bio exorcist (a ghost capable of scaring the living) hired by a recently deceased couple in an attempt to scare off the new owners of their house. Beetlejuice is summoned by saying his name three times. (Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice.) Nowadays
Election fever has hit the United Kingdom as the days count down to 7th May 2015. This is likely to be one of the most uncertain elections in recent memory, with nearly 10 parties struggling for votes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Results night will be tense, with the different
The move to value-based payments is well underway and accelerating. The shift is putting unprecedented pressure on health care providers to better manage the cost and quality of care they deliver. Who will have a much better shot of success? Organizations that understand how well they are performing, where they have opportunities to improve
The Internet of Things (IoT) is going to take us into the next big technology wave, which will include a massive proliferation of personal connected devices like we have never seen before – cars, toothbrushes, household appliances, watches, medical devices, bicycles, and all sorts of things on our body and in
Whether it’s a smart water meter or a complex combustion turbine, expectations of reliability for complex, connected machines have increased across the board. Due to higher visibility and the availability of advanced analytics, companies know they should be able to identify emerging safety and reliability issues in these assets. By
As part of two of our client engagements, we have been tasked with providing guidance on an analytics environment platform strategy. More concretely, the goal is to assess the systems that currently compose the “data warehouse environment” and determine what the considerations are for determining the optimal platforms to support
I was recently asked by a customer if they should move the responsibility for creating the statistical baseline forecast. They were considering moving it from their regional country offices to their global headquarters. In addtion, they were considering changing the role of their regional demand planners to only make adjustments to
Most SAS programmers have been here. Someone just wants a handful of numbers that they can add to a graph or power point presentation that is due tomorrow. You have the data files, you have a job to summarize it, and you have a dilemma. How do I get my
The adoption of data analytics in organisations is widespread these days. Due to the lower costs of ownership and increased ease of deployment, there are realistically no barriers for any organisation wishing to exploit more from their data. This of course presents a challenge because the rate of data analytics adoption
People are talking about your products. But more importantly, they’re listening. Facebook, Twitter, review sites, and product forums are just a few of the sources that a savvy customer checks when making a buying decision. This reality has fundamentally changed the definition of quality. It’s no longer sufficient to conform
A common question from statistical programmers is how to compute the rank of a matrix in SAS. Recall that the rank of a matrix is defined as the number of linearly independent columns in the matrix. (Equivalently, the number of linearly independent rows.) This article describes how to compute the
The date of Easter influences our leisure activities Different from many other public holidays, Easter is a so-called movable holiday. This means that the Easter bunny brings more than just eggs for the statistician - he brings special Easter forecasting challenges. In the year 325 CE the Council for Nicea
One of our customers asked if I could show him how to reproduce a stickman graph that David McCandless (ala, Information is Beautiful) had created - see screen capture below. I'm not sure that it's the best kind of graph for the occasion, but of course SAS can be used
“Begin with the end in mind” - Habit #2 from Stephen Covey’s ‘Highly Effective People’. The Edge Foundation is based on the premise of: “To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them
Well okay maybe you can't hear us, but at least you can read what we have to say. Although, I'm not ruling out an occasional video or podcast entry. One of the best kept secrets at SAS is the incredible domain expertise that comes to work here everyday, ready to
