The SAS/IML language is used for many kinds of computations, but three important numerical tasks are integration, optimization, and root finding. Recently a SAS customer asked for help with a problem that involved all three tasks. The customer had an objective function that was defined in terms of an integral.
Today SAS began shipping the second maintenance release of SAS 9.4, colloquially known as "SAS 9.4M2". This is an incremental release, meant to build upon the already-solid SAS 9.4 platform. Even as a SAS insider, I cannot possibly keep track of every new feature that has been added in maintenance.
Wisdom has built her house; She has hewn out her seven pillars. – Proverbs 9:1 At the 2014 Joint Statistical Meetings in Boston, Stephen Stigler gave the ASA President's Invited Address. In forty short minutes, Stigler laid out his response to the age-old question "What is statistics?" His answer was
You may have heard the phase that big data is the new oil. Well (pun intended), if that is the case, then analytics should be thought of as the fracking technique used on data to improve the value you get from this new oil. Fracking is actually just one
You are the new SAS Administrator. After the initial shock or excitement, you sit back and wonder, “What does that MEAN???” In an enterprise environment there are often divisions of duties. The SAS Intelligence Platform is no exception. Just take a look at the architecture. Just looking at this picture,
In SAS software, you can use the QUAD subroutine in the SAS/IML language to evaluate definite integrals on an interval [a, b]. The integral is properly defined only for a < b, but mathematicians define the following convention, which enables you to make sense of reversing the limits of integration:
For those of you who are classic rock fans, you may remember Alice Cooper’s title track “School’s Out for Summer” on the album “School’s Out.” That song captures students’ excitement of a taking a hiatus from the classroom. But for professors, summer is a time to continue their own education
With Discovery Channel's Shark Week starting on August 10, I decided to sink my teeth into some shark-attack data - I even found there were some shark attacks in the Midwestern US! Read on to learn the details... To get you into the shark mindset, here is a photo of an
What insights can be gained from the massive amounts of data that allow us to make decisions that deliver the best results? Data vs. information is an ongoing battle. Many people look for more data to make confident decisions. However, what most people seek is insight. Retailers always have tracked
Para ganar en el mercado, las organizaciones deben estar innovando todo el tiempo, esto significa moverse rápido, entrar en nuevos mercados estar más accesibles para los clientes, lanzar nuevos productos y tener precios cada vez más competitivos. Pero entre más innoven y compitan, mayores son los riesgos que deben enfrentar
We often hear from retail bank customers that they aren't satisfied with the revenue captured through digital channels. It was therefore with great interest that I embarked on the mission to understand Chris Skinner’s book Digital Bank. Why we need digital banks The book starts by painting the landscape of
In my last three posts on data ethics, I explored a few of the ethical dilemmas in our data-driven world. From examining the ethical practices of free internet service providers to the problem of high-frequency trading, I’ve come to realize the depth and complexity of these issues. Anyone who's aware of these
Unless you diligently read the "What's New" chapter for each release of SAS software, it is easy to miss new features that appear in the language. People who have been writing SAS/IML programs for decades are sometimes surprised when I tell them about a useful new function or programming feature.
Perhaps you're a big data expert who is fluent in Pig, Hive, MapR and all the technologies associated with the open source big data framework. Or maybe your role hasn't yet been touched by the increasingly popular Hadoop system. It's certainly worth a few minutes of your time (or perhaps
David Loshin defines reference data and sets up a working definition for his next set of posts.
We’re not sure about you, but we just had the most thrilling, suspenseful, and fun month we’ve had in a while. The 2014 FIFA World Cup may be over, but we’re still amazed by not only the game outcomes and level of athleticism, but also by the wealth of interesting
In a previous blog post, I described how to generate combinations in SAS by using the ALLCOMB function in SAS/IML software. The ALLCOMB function in Base SAS is the equivalent function for DATA step programmers. Recall that a combination is a unique arrangement of k elements chosen from a set
When I started working at business analytics leader SAS, I had no idea I’d be helping the Great Britain Rowing Team plot their way to Olympic glory. While I haven’t, yet, got in a boat and started rowing, I have started working with them on how they can make better
In this blog post, I put some classic rock song data under the SAS Analytics microscope, to see if I could get a better picture of exactly what is considered 'classic rock' these days... Michael Raithel recently pointed me to an interesting article/study about 'classic rock' music, and invited (or is
Las estrategias para cometer fraude se están volviendo cada vez más sofisticadas al punto de hacerlo más difícil de detectar. Según la Agencia Fiscal Belga, se calcula que los delincuentes roban 100.000 millones de euros (132.000 millones de dólares estadounidenses) al año a los gobiernos de toda Europa mediante un
This week’s author tip is from Michele Burlew and her new book SAS Macro Programming Made Easy, Third Edition. Burlew chose this tip because she says it’s important to understand how SAS determines where a macro variable reference starts and stops, and often a delimiter is needed to tell SAS
Imagine if your ability to feed your family depended upon how fast you could run. Imagine the aisles of your grocery store as lanes on a running track. If you can outrun your fellow shoppers, grab food off the shelves and race through the checkout at the finish line, then
IT folks love SQL (Standard Query Language). Once you know how to program in SQL, you can work with almost any database because it is a standard. However, SQL is NOT a standard for doing analytics. The SAS programming language pre-dates SQL and even though SAS does SQL, SQL does not
In a previous blog post, I showed how to overlay a prediction ellipse on a scatter plot in SAS by using the ELLIPSE statement in PROC SGPLOT. The ELLIPSE statement draws the ellipse by using a standard technique that assumes the sample is bivariate normal. Today's article describes the technique
The sun has gone eerily quiet, in the middle of what should be the height of the 11-year sunspot cycle... Here's a superb photo of some sunspots that Stephen A. Carr posted to the Telescope Addicts Facebook group - a group which I follow with great interest. (Thanks for allowing
I had the privilege of attending the inaugural Women in Hollywood IT Society (WHITS) meeting this past week in LA. The meeting was hosted by the Media and Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) with lots of organization from two female IT executives from Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures already has a Women
Although I’m not particularly excited about football (I admit, I don’t completely understand what offside means), I did follow the last World Cup with more than average attention. Not only for the handsome players, but especially for all the fascinating statistics that appeared. It struck me that heat maps popped
I’ve been told I have rocks for brains before, but right now I have rocks on the brain – the kind that are millions of years old and contain precious stores of oil and gas. One reason I have petroleum on my mind is that I’ve just returned from Brazil, where
For 38 years, SAS CEO Jim Goodnight has run this company by a simple philosophy: Treat employees like they make a difference and they will. It was with that philosophy in mind 30 years ago that SAS opened the doors to its on-site healthcare center – with just one employee!
If you recognize this 1984 Wham! hit then you also recall girls in ties and blazers, guys in leisure suits, gas for $1.10 a gallon and seeing The Karate Kid at the Cineplex for $2.50 (at night!). If you think music and fashion were suspect thirty years ago, consider SAS’
