For the first time in a decade, I have a new official role and title at SAS. But what's remarkable about my new role isn't how much of my job will change, but how much of it will remain the same. I'm giving up my role as a software manager,
Look out, SAS and software nerds: there are more techy blogs headed your way via blogs.sas.com. Beginning this week, I've been joined by two of my fellow SAS R&D staffers: Rick Wicklin presents The DO Loop, which focuses on SAS/IML and other subjects of interest to statistical programmers, and SAS
The shortfall in 2010 state and local government budgets is not news. But it remains the biggest issue facing state and local governments today – and will continue well into tomorrow. Existing gaps are projected to widen further in 2011, throwing departments and agencies already on the edge further into
No matter how much we want it, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t always achieve the forecast accuracy desired. Forecasting Heads or Tails in the toss of a fair coin gives the perfect illustration (being right 50% of the time is all we can achieve over a
A frequently performed task in data analysis is identifying all the observations in a data set that satisfy certain conditions. For example, you might want to identify all of the female patients in your study or to identify all patients whose systolic blood pressure is greater than 140 mm Hg.
"How do I apply a format to a vector of values in IML? In the DATA step, I can just call the PUTN function.” This question came from a SAS customer that I met recently at a conference. My reply? Use the PUTN function, but send it a vector of
Unemployment Insurance, mandated by federal statute and administered by states, is designed to provide a temporary safety net for workers who lose their jobs. Due to the recent economic downtown and increase in unemployment, unemployment benefits paid have doubled nationally from $38B in 2008 to $75B in 2009. However, is
The R You Ready blog posed an interesting problem. Essentially, you have a vector that contains n(n+1)/2 elements, and you want to pack those elements into the upper left triangular portion of a matrix. For example, if your data are proc iml; /** vector v is given: ncol(v) = n(n+1)/2 for
This week, SAS introduced SAS Rapid Predictive Modeler, a component of SAS Enterprise Miner that allows a business user to drive the modeling from Microsoft Excel (via the SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office) or SAS Enterprise Guide. It was made possible thanks to the close collaboration of R&D staff on
When Marilyn Manson sang of “The Beautiful People,” I think it was about how symmetry of facial features makes a person more visually attractive. At least that was the message I got out of the song. But unfortunately, even facial symmetry cannot compensate for an insufferable personality, as both Marilyn
When programmers begin learning a new computer language, the first program they write is often one that prints the text “Hello, World!” Successfully writing a Hello World program assures the programmer that the software is successfully installed and that all necessary features are working: parsers, compilers, linkers, and so on.
The secret to long life is good genes, right? This publication titled "Joint influence of small-effect genetic variants on human longevity" showed up on my Google alerts, and from what I can read (all of it) and understand (very little of it), that assertion is true. The researchers used PROC
Shane and others have already discovered this. The new version of SAS Enterprise Guide is now available. The latest version offers tremendous enhancements for all users, especially SAS programmers. It includes a new SAS program editing environment that supports syntax suggestions and autocomplete, embedded syntax reference help, and a SAS
Did the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles regain its sanity? Or was this just another tease? As you recall from last year, my application for “THE BFD” personalized license plate was accepted – then rejected – even though that extra $30 fee could have eased at least some of
The long awaited winners of the second round of Race To The Top were announced yesterday. Race To The Top is about education reform to improve schools and is based on four assurances: 1) Raising standards and improving assessments. 2) Recruiting, retaining and supporting effective educators and ensure equitable distribution
The last two years have been one long, downhill-only roller coaster ride for state and local governments. Budget crises that are the result of decreasing revenues at every level have left state legislatures, governors and local government leadership struggling to maintain effective services for their citizens and, in some cases,
Self-anointed as The Aristocrat of forecasting related blogs, The BFD takes its public service role seriously (or at least as seriously as anyone who self-anoints on a regular basis can be taken). Among the services The BFD provides, both publicly (on webcasts or speaking engagements) and privately (by phone, email,
SAS allows for three different cube storage mechanisms: 1. MOLAP The traditional SAS OLAP Cube will all aggregations / nway stored on a physical file structure accessible by the SAS OLAP Cube Server. 2. ROLAP A relational OLAP cube - where no aggregations are stored and SAS points to the
In 1829, Sir Robert Peel laid the foundation for the modern day professional police force. In shaping the conceptual framework for policing, Peel put forth: “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.” While Peel described a proactive ideal, many police agencies are struggling
Today's Australian news journal features an article about how Dr. Jim Goodnight swept into Australia for the SAS Forum event, delivered his remarks and pressed a few palms, and then was on his way back home -- according to the article -- on the very same day. That's not exactly
It's been a very busy week for me here in Sydney, Australia. For starters, I led a two-day course about SAS Enterprise Guide for experienced SAS users. We used SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3, which is just about to ship from SAS. I told my students that they were the first
This week I received an urgent text message from a good friend and former colleague in the consulting business: Mike, I am down 24 pages in your book and [besmirching my trousers]. Is there no hope for consultants like me? My response was to not let the book ruin a
I've completed my first day of teaching a two-day course about SAS Enterprise Guide. I'm in Sydney, Australia...but my biological clock is still tuned into Cary, North Carolina time. I woke up at 1 a.m. today and even though I tried to convince my body that it was still time
An alarming percentage of major software implementations fail to be delivered on time, on budget, or even at all. Implementations of new forecasting software, or of new forecasting processes, are not immune from this legacy of failure. Why does this happen, and is there anything we can do about it?
I received this offer in the post the other day: "University apparel just for you, featuring the name HEMEDINGER!" Yes, the offer has it correct. This would be just for me, because I can't think of anyone else who might order it. I regret that I didn't receive the offer
I recently met with five people who have been in state and local government for a combined total of over 100 years. It was a group that covered multiple areas of government including Health and Human Services, Courts and Corrections, Finance and Emergency Management. Everyone came to the table with
There is a long running debate among forecasting professionals, on whether to use Forecast or Actual in the denominator of your percentage error calculations. The Winter 2009 issue of Foresight had an article by Kesten Green and Len Tashman, reporting on a survey (of the International Institute of Forecasters discussion
Art Carpenter offers tremendous advice to SAS programmers who want to maximize their job security: make your programs impossible for others to read and understand. In his published papers, Art (in his tongue-in-cheek manner) presents practical examples for how to accomplish this. I'm afraid that with our new code formatter
The Summer 2010 issue of Foresight is now available. Here is Editor Len Tashman’s preview: For so many years, we forecasters have developed and refined models for demand forecasts – forecasts for product and item sales, orders, shipments – without paying adequate attention to the details of how these forecasts
The %STPBegin and %STPEnd macros are pretty powerful pieces of code for SAS Stored Processes. They embed all sorts of information on devices, where content is located, and just make everything work. However for creating those fancy custom HTML forms or layouts, ods html is needed instead. I've written about
