A regular reader noticed my post on initializing vectors by using repetition factors and asked whether that technique would be useful to expand data that are given in value-frequency pairs. The short answer is "no." Repetition factors are useful for defining (static) matrix literals. However, if you want to expand
Imagine a business offering a multitude of products and services that seemingly have little relationship to one another, and all are supported by different data systems. This is the plight of local governments. The products and services produced and managed by local governments range from utilities, solid waste and recycling to parks
This week's SAS tip is from Art Carpenter and his latest book Carpenter's Guide to Innovative SAS Techniques. Art is a talented SAS user and prolific author--and was just recognized in the SAS Circle of Excellence for 30 years of using SAS software. After taking a look at this week's book
If you've watched any of the demos for SAS Visual Analytics (or even tried it yourself!), you have probably seen this nifty exploration of multiple measures. It's a way to look at how multiple measures are correlated with one another, using a diagonal heat map chart. The "stronger" the color
You might have seen my previous blog, where I plotted some interesting tourist attractions on a geographical map of the British Isles (which may be of interest to Analytics 2013 Conference delegates)... Well this blog uses even more powerful analytics, and shows how SAS can calculate the "optimal tour" to visit all
In a previous blog post, I described how to use a spread plot to compare the distributions of several variables. Each spread plot is a graph of centered data values plotted against the estimated cumulative probability. Thus, spread plots are similar to a (rotated) plot of the empirical cumulative distribution
David Loshin (@davidloshin) offers a new approach to addressing customer classification.
Suppose that you have several data distributions that you want to compare. Questions you might ask include "Which variable has the largest spread?" and "Which variables exhibit skewness?" More generally, you might be interested in visualizing how the distribution of one variable differs from the distribution of other variables. The
As part of my follow-up to SAS Global Forum 2013, I've posted a few articles about how to create your own client apps with SAS Integration Technologies. This article shows how to use Microsoft .NET -- the same approach used for SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office
This week's SAS tip is from Michele Burlew and her book SAS Macro Programming Made Easy, Second Edition. Michele is the author of several extremely helpful SAS books. Visit her author page to learn more about her work and for additional free content. The following excerpt is from SAS Press
Are you going to Analytics 2013 in London?!? And if so, have you found any fun/interesting/touristy things to do while you're there? ... Being an analytics conference, I thought it would be good to apply some "analytics" to the task! So I took some locations in the British Isles that I thought
Analytics 2013 is the educational conference for data analysts to learn about the latest technology and advances in the field of analytics. The next conference is set for June 19-20 in London, and I am excited to be attending this year. In fact, this will be my very first international
Last week I showed how to use simulation to estimate the power of a statistical test. I used the two-sample t test to illustrate the technique. In my example, the difference between the means of two groups was 1.2, and the simulation estimated a probability of 0.72 that the t
One of the great things about SAS libraries is that you can write your programs to read and write data without having to worry about where the data lives. SAS data set on a file system? Oracle table in a database server? Hadoop data in Hive? For many SAS applications,
Data expert David Loshin (@davidloshin) delves into value pricing and customer analytics.
Einmal pro Monat fassen wir ab jetzt Studien, Videos und Veröffentlichungen über Big Data, Business Analytics und Datenvisualisierung für Sie zusammen. Das Wichtigste über den Umgang mit Daten in Unternehmen und datenbasierte Entscheidungen - im Web gefunden, zusammengetragen und ausgewählt von führenden Analysten, unseren Partnern und SAS-Experten. Zur aktuellen Ausgabe: "The
A SAS user told me that he computed a vector of values in the SAS/IML language and wanted to use those values on a statement in a SAS procedure. The particular application involved wanting to use the values on the ESTIMATE and CONTRAST statements in a SAS regression procedure, but
Die Big Data-Diskussion hat vielen Unternehmen vor Augen geführt, dass Daten mittlerweile zu einem wichtigen Produktionsfaktor geworden sind. Ohne eine gezielte und konsequente Strategie lässt sich der Wert, der in den Daten steckt, nicht heben. Gefragt sind methodische und organisatorische Weichenstellungen – unterstützt von Software, die den Brückenschlag zwischen Fachbereich
This week's SAS tip is from Gerhard Svolba and his latest book Data Quality for Analytics Using SAS. For additional bonus book content and to learn more about Gerhard and his work, visit his author page. The following excerpt is from SAS Press author Gerhard Svolba's book "Data Quality for Analytics Using SAS"
I can attest first-hand that the SAS bookstore was super busy at SAS Global Forum. I helped many customers find just the right book(s). Some users showed up with a general topic in mind, while others knew exactly what they wanted (often after hearing a book referenced during a paper). Now that
They say "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery"... Therefore when I imitate Hans Rosling's famous world-data animation, it's not that I'm jealous, but that I'm paying homage to him! (OK, and maybe also a little bit jealous! LOL) Well, anyway, for those of you who haven't seen it,
The power of a statistical test measures the test's ability to detect a specific alternate hypothesis. For example, educational researchers might want to compare the mean scores of boys and girls on a standardized test. They plan to use the well-known two-sample t test. The null hypothesis is that the
Last time we saw two situations where you wouldn't bother trying to improve your forecast: When forecast accuracy is "good enough" and is not constraining organizational performance. When the costs and consequences of a less-than-perfect forecast are low. (Another situation was brought to my attention by Sean Schubert of
If you write a blog, you deal with spam comments. That's just part of the deal. Spammers are forever inventing new and creative methods for "tricking" you into accepting their spam comments. These comments have nothing to do with your blog topic but do contain trackback links to their own
Has anyone noticed that the REG procedure in SAS/STAT 12.1 produces heat maps instead of scatter plots for fit plots and residual plots when the regression involves more than 5,000 observations? I wasn't aware of the change until a colleague informed me, although the change is discussed in the "Details"
This week's SAS tip is from Ron Cody and his latest book Cody's Collection of Popular SAS Programming Tasks and How to Tackle Them. Learn more about this esteemed user and his many bestselling SAS books--as well as get additional bonus content on his author page. The following excerpt is from
If the popularity of one's blog can be measured by the number of comments received, then The BFD has become quite popular. Many of the comments are quite flattering, such as: Hello, I check your blog like еvery week. Үour writing style is wittу, keep doing ωhat you're doing! Vеry
Dylan Jones (@dataqualitypro) shares an example of why data quality should be a business-as-usual practice.
In my article "Simulation in SAS: The slow way or the BY way," I showed how to use BY-group processing rather than a macro loop in order to efficiently analyze simulated data with SAS. In the example, I analyzed the simulated data by using PROC MEANS, and I use the
I recently read an interesting article in The Economist, where they describe "The Big Mac index." This is an index they invented as a lighthearted guide to compare currencies in different countries. In their article they create a multi-panel display (similar to a dashboard) where they compare the index for several countries using
