"We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain, and big ol' fat rain, rain that flew in sideways, and sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." Was that a quote from the Forrest Gump movie, or something said regarding Hurricane Florence? Could be either one! Hurricane Florence recently came through
Nothing says you are wasting your time and energy more than referring to a process as plowing a field with a fork. I liked to use this phrase as a manager and auditor, especially in government. Good data analytics makes a big difference in problem solving. Does anyone think a
The data I was analyzing was about “trust.” Maybe that’s what got me thinking about Stephen Sondheim, the Broadway composer and lyricist of musicals like Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods and the lyricist for West Side Story. Trust is a heavy emotional topic. Developmental psychologists
Many of the most beautiful areas in the US are owned by the government, to preserve them and allow access for everyone to enjoy them. And most US schools are traditionally closed during the summer, which provides families a great opportunity to go visit state and federal lands (parks, forests,
Showing the most popular jobs in each state is interesting (as I showed in my previous two blogs 1, 2) ... but not that interesting. How about something a little more quirky?!? ... Let's determine the most disproportionately popular job in each state! Their Map I got the idea for
Using small multiples is a neat way to display a lot of information in a small amount of space. But depending on how deeply you want to analyze and scrutinize the data, you need to be careful in choosing just how small you make your small multiples. Let's look at
When I'm at a social gathering, someone always asks what type of work I do. I like to keep my social life separate from my work, therefore I usually give a vague answer such as "software" (and quickly change the topic). How vague or specific is your response? How vague
People across the country (and world) are not getting the care they need. There are many data efforts to address that, but I personally believe traditional analytics are short-sighted, too illness-focused, and remarkably negative. We need to take a more holistic approach to data, policy, and health care, including traditional
Elections are in the news again, therefore I have been on the lookout for interesting graphs. I recently found some graphs of the Census Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement data, and tried to improve them. Follow along if you're interested in voter data, or creating better graphs!
I peruse many different websites to get my news, and I always keep an eye out for good (or bad) presentations of data. I recently saw a posting on reddit claiming "U.S. GDP is greater than the total of all others combined." This news seemed too good to be true
Soccer has been on my mind since the recent tournament in Russia, and fraud is always on my mind. Fighting fraud today means thinking about artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Everyone says so. Like me, you probably wonder how AI and ML work – especially in fraud. What
I started my computer career as a Unix system administrator, and when I began using SAS almost 30 years ago it was only natural that I used it on Unix computers (they were the most powerful/capable computers I had access to at the time). I've picked up a lot of
I can recognize several languages when I hear people speaking them (mostly because I lived in the Alexander International Dorm at NC State University). Therefore when I found a map of the most common languages spoken in each US state, it caught my attention, and I decided to try creating my
En el desarrollo de la 4ta Convención Latinoamericana de Analítica, Julio José Prado, presidente ejecutivo de Asobanca Ecuador, aseguró que los bancos dejaron de ser el centro del mundo financiero después de la crisis económica de 2008, cuando los malos manejos en préstamos y créditos aumentaron los niveles de riesgo
The headline from the Newark Star-Ledger tells the story: “N.J. drug overdose deaths in 2018 on a record-shattering pace.” The opioid crisis continues to grow in New Jersey. From July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017, the state saw a 34.7 percent increase in the number of opioid-related deaths, a
Of course you know how to create graphs ... But do you often find that preparing the data to plot is often the hardest part? Well then, this blog post is for you! I'll be demonstrating how to import Excel data into SAS, transpose the data, use what were formerly column
The United States declared independence in 1776, and we celebrate it on July 4th every year. But the land areas that make up the United States today weren't necessarily the same as they were back then. So I thought it would be interesting to create a map showing when each
Cae una lluvia torrencial en un área densamente poblada. Los niveles se elevan rápidamente. Al llegar a un punto determinado, un sensor envía una señal a un centro de control desde el cual se abren unas compuertas que aceleran el desahogo de las aguas pluviales para evitar inundaciones. En otro
Bloomberg Government reported in the 2017 fiscal year that federal agencies could commit more than $1 billion on countermeasures for insider threats. Whether that number turned out to be accurate or not, it highlights the priority that the federal government is placing on protecting its information and data from being
One of my favorite Eddie Murphy movies when I was growing up was Coming to America. And speaking of coming to America, there's been a lot in the news recently about people doing just that. So I thought I'd use my SAS skills to help people wanting to come to
It seems only a few months back I posted an article on creating Pie Charts using a GTL based macro. Well, looking back, that was almost 6 years ago!! Recently, a colleague here at SAS needed to create Pie Charts in his report along with other plots created using SGPLOT
Una sucursal bancaria y un campo de fútbol. Un contragolpe y una compra de cartera. Los nuevos banqueros y las estrellas nacientes del balompié. Parecen palabras apenas puestas juntas, elementos de dos mundos muy diferentes, comparaciones imposibles. Sin embargo, durante la 4ª Convención Latinoamericana de Analítica organizada por SAS en
La economía digital surgió a raíz del avance de la tecnología en la informática y las telecomunicaciones. El último Modelo de Gestión de Riesgos de Seguridad Digital entregado por el Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones -MinTIC-, afirma que en los últimos 20 años el acceso a
A question recently popped up in a discussion forum about creating table plots using SAS. So I thought I'd dabble in this topic, and see what I could come up with. If you're interested in tableplots, or American Community Survey (ACS) data, or data visualization, I invite you to follow
A person in the United States dies every 15 minutes because of substance use disorder. The number has doubled in the past 10 years as the crisis continues to grow in severity, especially in rural areas with high unemployment. Using analytics to map the growth of opioid deaths shows the
“Machine Learning” is a trendy term being kicked around (pun intended) by fraud fighters around the world. In fact, Machine Learning is such a popular term that it is becoming a staple in buzzword bingo games. Here’s a little secret about machine learning… many of the people who talk about
El pasado 17 de junio Colombia eligió a Iván Duque, el candidato del Centro Democrático, como su próximo presidente. El ganador junto con su gabinete, que ejercerán desde el próximo 7 de agosto y hasta el 2022, recibirán un país que aunque se recupera económicamente, aún enfrenta grandes retos en
You've probably seen in the news that a volcano erupted in Guatemala recently. But do you really know much about this volcano, or even where it's located? Hopefully this blog post will get you up to speed on your volcanology! Pictures of a recent volcano erupting in Hawaii show slow-moving
With talk of tariffs in the news lately, I'm sure everyone is curious about possible ways to bypass them. One possible loophole is using the foreign-trade zones (FTZs) in the US. What are FTZs, and where are they located? Read along and find out!... The Foreign-Trade Zone act was passed in
‘Customer service’ probably isn’t the first phrase that anyone associates with government or public services. Indeed, we are almost certainly more used to thinking of public services as the complete opposite of customer-focused. That, however, needs to change.
