In preparation for TDWI San Diego, I was finalizing my schedule and checking out what some of my favorite TDWI instructors are up to for San Diego. I'll be blogging about my fave classes from these instructors all next week. This evening I caught up on Cindi Howson 's blog
In the SAS/IML language, the index creation operator (:) is used to construct a sequence of integer values. For example, the expression 1:7 creates a row vector with seven elements: 1, 2, ..., 7. It is important to know the precedence of matrix operators. When I was in grade school,
I bet that many of you reading our blog are familiar with accomplished SAS users and authors Lauren Haworth, Cynthia Zender, and Michele Burlew. Together, they form a powerful triumvirate of SAS experience. If you get a chance to pick up their book Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond
Each indicator added to the dashboard begins with the saved name of the indicator. Take the example below, I dragged the spark table indicator '02_Top_CustomerSAT' into the new dashboard. Of course the 02_Top_CustomerSAT name is not necessarily what my executives would like to see on their dashboard view. But I
I've previously discussed how to find the root of a univariate function. This article describes how to find the root (zero) of a function of several variables by using Newton's method. There have been many papers, books, and dissertations written on the topic of root-finding, so why am I blogging
Everyone within the health care community recognizes that the traditional ‘pay-and-chase’ model for fraud cost reduction has some serious limitations. Recovery of the lost funds is in some cases a mere single digit percentage point (with some exceptions – but not many) of the moneys paid. And the effort and
At the SAS/IML Support Community, a SAS/IML programmer recently asked how to find "the root of a complicated equation." That's a huge question, and many papers and books have been written on the topic of root-finding, also known as finding the zeros of a function. Everyone has favorite techniques for
One of the great innovations with SAS 9.3 is the focus on ODS statistical graphics. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "weren't ODS graphics added in SAS 9.2?" Yes, that's true. But with SAS 9.3 there is even more capability: more analytical SAS procedures support the graphs, and there are more
SIFMA held its Dodd-Frank Impact Analysis Summit in New York City on July 13, bringing together almost 500 industry participants for a day-long discussion just prior to the first anniversary of the Act’s passage. In addition to Tim Ryan (SIFMA CEO), the summit included guest speakers Larry Kudlow, Evan Thomas
Within BI Dashboard 4.3, you can change the font styles on different elements within the Dashboard. This is a global change to all the indicators displayed on the dashboard as you are unable to modify at an indicator level fonts for titles, cells, etc. Ranges are placed on indicators and
Recently, I was able to spend a morning with a group of analytics executives at the SAS Power Series in Chicago. I enjoyed it a lot because instead of pontificating about analytics to them, I got to hear about their challenges and approaches in a workshop format. There were a
A matrix is an array of numbers or character strings. When I print a matrix, I usually want to see only the data. However, sometimes it is helpful to add row or column headings that indicate the names of variables or labels for rows. A simple example is count data
In a previous blog post, I showed how to use the LOGISTIC procedure to construct a receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve in SAS. That same day, Charlie H. blogged about how to use the DATA step to construct an ROC curve from basic principles. It has been a long time
I've written about how to add a diagonal line to a scatter plot by using the SGPLOT procedure in SAS 9.2. The main idea (use the VECTOR statement) is easy enough, but writing a program that handles a line with any slope requires some additional effort. But now SAS 9.3
Summary In this free white paper, Customer Intimacy: The Pharma Challenge (click to download the PDF), industry leaders weigh in on how pharmaceutical companies can become more relevant to their trifecta of customers: physicians, payers and patients. Featuring Goutam Chakraborty, Professor (Marketing) and Founder of SAS and OSU Data Mining
contributed by SAS Publishing's Shelly Goodin For me, SAS Global Forum wouldn't be the same without getting a chance to catch up with SAS Press author Phil Holland. Besides being extremely knowledgeable about SAS (he's been using it since 1981), he is as enterprising and approachable as his popular book
The other day I needed to compute the signum function for each element of a matrix. If x is a real number, then the sgn(x) is -1 when x<0, 1 when x>0, and 0 when x=0. I wrote a SAS/IML module that contains a compact little expression: proc iml; start
contributed by Sandy Varner, SAS Publishing Operations Manager We’ve been talking a lot lately about eBooks. I hope you’ve downloaded the FREE Kindle eBook What’s New in SAS 9.3. Now, we have two more eBook deals for you from SAS Publishing – one for JMP users and one for SAS
I recently blogged about how many times, on average, you must roll a die until you see all six faces. This question is a special case of the coupon collector's problem. My son noted that the expected value (the mean number of rolls) is not necessarily the best statistic to
contributed by SAS Publishing's Shelly Goodin There's been a lot of excitement, inside and outside of SAS, about the recent release of SAS 9.3. And there is a wealth of useful information to keep you informed about the latest offerings. For instance, you can learn more about SAS 9.3 by
Once again, SAS is happy to be involved in CRM Evolution 2011 as a Platinum Sponsor. This year, CRM Evolution—the annual event of CRM Media, publisher of DestinationCRM and CRM Magazine—is happening at the New York Hilton, August 8-10. Last year, our CRM Evolution 2010 sponsorship included two SAS customers,
I was presented with a design approach yesterday that included one web report duplicated multiple times for each group in the organization. Each web report then used essentially an identical information map with the difference of only a filter. Instead of using a single web report with a prompted filter (or copying the web
"Dad? How many times do I have to roll a die until all six sides appear?" I stopped what I was doing to consider my son's question. Although I could figure out the answer mathematically, sometimes experiments are more powerful than math equations for showing how probability works. "Why don't
Anyone that keeps up with this blog knows that I'm quite fond of my SAS books. So the thought of having an electronic copy of a book seemed a bit daunting at first. But, while at PHARMSUG this past May, I was fortunate enough to be awarded a Kindle from
Yesterday, Jiangtang Hu did a frequency analysis of my blog posts and noticed that there are some holidays on which I post to my blog and others on which I do not. The explanation is simple: I post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, provided that SAS Institute (World Headquarters) is
I am one of those rare people that enjoys process; not rigid process and military-like discipline, but order. Wasted effort drives me insane. I’ve been on projects all through my career where I feel like the project teams are constantly reinventing the wheel, because nobody bothered to capture any documentation
Dates and times. As Wayne Finley states in his SUGI25 paper on SAS date and time handling, "The SAS system provides a plethora of methods to handle date and time values." Along with the plethora of methods is a plethora of papers on the topic. If you want to trick
I feel privileged to have been invited back to meet with SAS customers throughout New Zealand and Australia. I also feel lucky to escape the North Carolina summer (with temperatures trending in the 90s Fahrenheit) in exchange for the "winter" weather Down Under. For a good chunk of August, I'll
Tuesday's release of SAS 9.3 included the new SAS Forecast Server 4.1, which has several valuable enhancements: Combination (Ensemble) Models: A combination of forecasts using different forecasting techniques can outperform forecasts produced by using any single technique. Users can combine forecasts produced by many different models using several different combination
A couple of weeks ago, SAS Press acquisitions editor Shelley Sessoms gamely agreed to participate in SAS Publishing's first ever "live" Facebook discussion. Shelley is an all-star author recruiter with an average RBI (real book interest) of acquiring 40 book proposals a year. Many SAS and JMP users, as well
