The DO Loop
Statistical programming in SAS with an emphasis on SAS/IML programs
Did you know that, for skewed distributions, the sample median is a biased estimator of the population median? You can show this in two ways. For any distribution, you can run a Monte Carlo simulation that reveals the bias. And, for some distributions (such as the exponential distribution), you can
A previous article discusses Welford's one-pass method for computing the sample mean and variance. The article mentions that a useful application of Welford's formulas is to monitor the convergence of a Monte Carlo simulation. This article shows how to implement that strategy in SAS. The Goldilocks Principle for Monte Carlo
In statistical programming, we often assume that the data are stored in a matrix or a data set and can be read at will. For example, if you want to compute a sample mean or standard deviation, you simply pass a vector to a built-in function, and the software spits