An issue that SAS/GRAPH users have wrestled with in the past has been how to put tick marks at irregular intervals on their axes. In PROC GPLOT, if you specify irregular intervals using the ORDER option on the AXIS statement, the procedure’s axis kicks into a “discrete” mode, where the
The Winter 2012 issue of Foresight is now available. Here is Editor Len Tashman's preview: --------------------------- Our last two issues featured Steve Morlidge’s Guiding Principles for managing an organization’s forecasting process. You can see the summary table of these principles on page 31. With this issue, we continue their development
How many of you routinely refer to SAS Documentation? Are there some heavy hitters you continuously turn to? When looking at the high traffic to documentation pages on the support.sas.com site in 2011, it's evident that some titles are definitely resonating with SAS users. As promised (in a recent post on the 9 Bestselling SAS
At the NRF BIG Show, I had the opportunity to sit down with Chuck Albrecht, President and COO, Northern Tool and Equipment Company to ask him the best advice he’s ever been given (more on that later), his thoughts on the craziest innovations he saw at the show, and Northern
Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a prosperous and joyful 2012! The joyful festive atmosphere continues to pervade most Chinese families in Asia in the coming week, as we will be celebrating Lunar New Year (Spring Festival) on Jan 23rd . This date is determined by the lunisolar Chinese calendar. Alongside
In my recent article on simulating Buffon's needle experiment, I computed the "running mean" of a series of values by using a single call to the CUSUM function in the SAS/IML language. For example, the following SAS/IML statements define a RunningMean function, generate 1,000 random normal values, and compute the
Think about what it’s like to learn to ride a bicycle, or play the piano, or hit a fast ball, or to coach a group of middle schoolers to do the same. If asked to explain how you stay balanced on a bicycle, you probably couldn’t do it. If you
A standing room only crowd gathered at the NRF BIG Show on Monday afternoon in New York to hear Winn-Dixie VP Chris Vukich share how this $7 billion regional grocer has achieved a successful pricing strategy that allows them to: See the impact of each price change. Create what-if scenarios. Model
Did you know that a selection of our most popular SAS training classes are offered in conjunction with SAS Global Forum at a 15% discount? If you’re planning to attend SAS Global Forum, arrive a few days early and take a class. These training classes could be the argument you
Robert Rutledge's book Just Enough SAS is the source of this week's SAS tip. It would be easy to turn almost any page of Robert's book into a stand-alone tip. However, today my attention was drawn to two side-by-side pages. One features a PROC GCHART pie chart (and includes a DONUT statement) and the other
Cities and counties are responsible for building and maintaining the infrastructure to support a broad range of services. Local governments must develop and implement multiyear capital projects plans that provide infrastructure for things such as jails, courts, public office buildings, streets, bridges, parks, athletic complexes and community centers, water treatment
Once again I rediscovered something that I once knew, but had forgotten. Fortunately, this blog is a good place to share little code snippets that I don't want to forget. I needed to compute the diagonal elements of a product of two matrices. In symbols, I have an nxp matrix,
At the NRF BIG Show in NYC this week, one of the hottest topics is what retailers can do with high-performance analytics. One major retailer has been able to determine optimal prices for as many as 270 million items each week, from 30 to two hours, run advanced markdown optimization
Here at SAS Publishing, we’ve started the new year off with a bang, particularly when it comes to conferences. We’re attending a number of new shows in addition to the usual lineup this year. Visit our booth, meet our authors, check out our new and forthcoming titles, and talk with
What brings more than 20,000 retailers to NYC in mid-January? I can promise you, it’s not the balmy 15 degree temperatures -- it’s the 101st NRF BIG SHOW, where SAS is a platinum sponsor. This is my first year attending this event – and it’s a bit overwhelming, so here’s a
The SAS/IML READ statement has a few convenient features for reading data from SAS data sets. One is that you can read all variables into vectors of the same names by using the _ALL_ keyword. The following DATA steps create a data set called Mixed that contains three numeric and
In the Star Wars movie, Obi-wan could just wave his hand, mutter a few words, and the stormtroopers would "move along". How the power of the Force makes ridding yourself of problematic characters so much easier! I recently was invited to become an alternate instructor for Ron Cody’s SAS Business
It's true. "Big data" can be a problem and an opportunity. Many organizations have struggled to manage, much less profit from, the deluge. In 2012, look for big data to spur demand for big data analytics. New developments in high-performance computing as well as increased demand for visualization and text
A recent question on a SAS Discussion Forum was "how can you overlay multiple kernel density estimates on a single plot?" There are three ways to do this, depending on your goals and objectives. Overlay different estimates of the same variable Sometimes you have a single variable and want to
It is "well known" that the pairwise deletion of missing values and the resulting computation of correlations can lead to problems in statistical computing. I have previously written about this phenomenon in my article "When is a correlation matrix not a correlation matrix." Specifically, consider the symmetric array whose elements
A’s in the front, Z’s in the back. How many of us grew up sitting in alphabetical order next to the same few classmates throughout school? While this is a quick and efficient way to learn student names, which is no easy task, it is not the most effective way
You know the old joke about the guy who jumps into a taxi and asks the driver, “Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?” and the driver replies, “Practice, practice, practice”. Well SAS OnDemand may not be your ticket to Carnegie Hall but it’s a great practice environment
During January 15 - 18, 2012 in New York City, the National Retail Federation will conduct its 101st annual "Retail's BIG Show" and once again SAS will be there in a big way. The retail industry is a big deal at SAS and SAS benefits retailers in a big way, with more than 600
Before there was CNN or FOX News, people used to get their news from SAS. At least, that's how I imagine that people kept themselves informed. What else can explain the existence of the NEWS= system option, which helps SAS admins to surface the must-know information to the SAS community?
In my article on Buffon's needle experiment, I showed a graph that converges fairly nicely and regularly to the value π, which is the value that the simulation is trying to estimate. This graph is, indeed, a typical graph, as you can verify by running the simulation yourself. However, notice
As we wrapped up 2011 and began preparing for 2012, we were notified by the Society for Technical Communication, Carolina Chapter, that three SAS Press books received awards in the 2011-2012 competition. We submitted these three entries this past November, and are thrilled that all three submissions won awards. Multiple
Dear Miss SAS Answers, In PROC REPORT can I use one calculated (computed) variable in the calculation of another computed variable? In the example below, I’m trying to use the value of the Bonus column to calculate the Total column: compute Bonus; Bonus =sal.sum*0.05; endcomp; compute Total; total=sum(sal.sum, Bonus.sum); endcomp;
Have you taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment? It is a psychological test wherefrom you are classified on Extraversion vs. Introversion, Sensing vs. Intuition, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Judging vs. Perceiving. I, along with roughly 15% of the population, come out an ISTJ or "Guardian Inspector" (the single largest
During one week in December, two separate transportation agencies within the federal government made two major announcements. First, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) – the government agency responsible for guiding traffic safety initiatives on the nation’s highways announced that crash fatalities had declined to record low rates. Just
A recent post on the SAS website shows the SAS Annual Revenue History. It would be interesting to see how we could create such a graph using SG procedures, and how we could add more information and interest in the presentation. So, I started with the basic informaiton on the annual revenues provided,
