Bridging the big data skills gap
Managing big data doesn't always mean hiring more people and buying new tools.
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Beyond the Mat
As the summer season begins to become part of the past and we return to a “normal” schedule, I’m reminded that there is still something celebratory as we slowly make our way into the autumn season. It’s yoga! September is National Yoga Month. It is a national health observance designated
Tweens and Sleep
Parents, I don’t need to tell you three obvious things: Sleep is critical to our well-being (no matter what age you are). Ask any primary care physician or therapist. Tweens and teens need more sleep than they get (need an average of 9-10 hours, but almost half get fewer than
7 ways to view correlation
Correlation is a fundamental statistical concept that measures the linear association between two variables. There are multiple ways to think about correlation: geometrically, algebraically, with matrices, with vectors, with regression, and more. To paraphrase the great songwriter Paul Simon, there must be 50 ways to view your correlation! But don't
Dutch Data Science, part 1: GoDataDriven
From June 6 to 9 the first ever ‘Dutch Data Science Week’ took place in the Netherlands. The week consisted of 4 days in which 28 events took place in 6 different locations. During the week people could attend classes ranging from beginner to advanced levels, visit meetups, participate in
Move of the Month: Turkish Getup
Everybody GET UP! Want to train the entire body in one exercise? This is it! The Turkish Getup is a multi-joint, multi-movement exercise that incorporates transitioning from the ground to standing. This exercise requires synergy, coordination, and core/shoulder stabilization to increase your functional strength. It may seem daunting, but it is
Where do modern day pirates attack?
International Talk Like a Pirate Day is Sept 19 ... which always gets me thinking and wondering about modern-day pirates. Most movies usually focus on pirates from the Golden Age of piracy (a couple hundred years ago), when pirates typically stole ships and booty (treasure). But modern day pirates usually board
Using SAS at SAS: 3 simple steps to better web content targeting
For those of you using SAS Customer Intelligence 360, or generally just interested in the space around web content targeting and personalization capabilities, I wanted to share the latest with what we’re doing at SAS. As the SAS web experience division, we use SAS Customer Intelligence 360 on sas.com for
3 machine learning technologies to watch over the next 3 three years
What’s new and what’s on the horizon for machine learning and analytics? We asked Kirk Borne, Principal Data Scientist and Executive Advisor at Booz Allen Hamilton, what machine learning technologies he’s watching. He focused his reply on applications, not algorithms. “When I think about what’s new and coming up, I
Education analytics: The impact of using SAS and analytics
In my first post of this blog series, we learned how three education customers are using SAS. Today, we'll hear about the positive impact that SAS and analytics are providing for users and the education institutions. In this post, you'll hear from: Linda Sullivan, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Knowledge Management,
How is debt collection like attribution modelling?
The analytical community is getting increasingly interested the concept of attribution. And while much of this is focused on digital marketing attribution, I want to take a step back to describe the wider application of attribution and the traditional techniques that can be used to solve a range of attribution
Advanced ODS Graphics: Examining and processing templates
This post shows a variety of techniques including how to use PROC TEMPLATE and the SOURCE statement, PROC SGPLOT with multiple Y-axis tables, create comparable axes in two side-by-side graphs, create a broken axis, write and use a table template that wraps text, and find and display examples of certain statements in graph templates and fonts in style templates.
On Labor Day, Help Students Think about Labor!
Labor Day is somewhat of a lost holiday. We enjoy the long weekend, but its significance is a bit muddled. This is particularly true for students. Essentially, Labor Day is just a Monday off that helps to break up the start of the school year. Curriculum Pathways social studies resources
The singular value decomposition and low-rank approximations
A previous article discussed the mathematical properties of the singular value decomposition (SVD) and showed how to use the SVD subroutine in SAS/IML software. This article uses the SVD to construct a low-rank approximation to an image. Applications include image compression and denoising an image. Construct a grayscale image The
Bots, collusion and accountability in pricing
In the recent article, “Price-bots can collude against consumers,” the Economist discusses the consumer effects of prices set by price-bots. The article starts with an example of gasoline pricing strategies on Martha’s Vineyard. With a small number of gas stations on the island, the price-bots can cover all competitor prices frequently
Jedi SAS Tricks - Variable Lists by Text Pattern
I hate hard-coding variable lists in my SAS code. I love the special variable lists SAS provides, like name:, _numeric_, etc. But back in 2011, I wrote a post titled Jedi SAS Tricks - Building a Name Suffix variable list lamenting the lack of a special variable list in base
Hurricane Harvey: How to Help
I know that we are all anxiously following the devastating events in Houston right now. I have a very personal connection as my daughter and her family live in Houston. My daughter is a nurse and is on the emergency response team – she has been at the hospital since
After the storm: Analytics help energy companies anticipate and recover
Widespread flooding. Downed power lines. Broken poles. Failed transformers and breakers. Leaking pipes. Shut down refineries. The toll that a catastrophic storm takes on the energy value chain is significant. A functioning power grid, clean water and reliable fuel sources are critical for public safety and economic recovery. Even with
New Feature! Saving and Sending Work with Portfolio
There's a new tab in town...meet Portfolio! After several requests from students and educators around the world, we're happy to introduce Portfolio. It allows students to save, organize, and send their work directly from Curriculum Pathways. From the Portfolio tab on user home, you can do the following: View your work.
A First Year Teacher’s Top 10 Tech Resources
"The first year of teaching is the toughest.” After making it through my first year as a high school math teacher, I have a much better understanding of why people always say this. There are so many challenges: adapting to a new environment, staying organized, learning curriculum, making professional connections,
How to use a data catalog to get more value from your data lake
David Loshin explains how to set up a data catalog that will help you get more value from a data lake.
Learn SAS from wherever you are: Live Web classes go global
My daughter is a junior in high school, and for almost every semester she’s taken an online course as part of her studies. This semester she’s taking Spanish 3, an advanced level course where every word of instruction is spoken in Spanish. Each morning she joins the class from our
Fun with ODS Graphics: Eclipse animation (part 2)
This example shows how to create two coordinated range attribute maps and use them in creating an animated gif of the eclipse.
Machine learning best practices: Manage the temporal effect
This is the sixth post in my series of machine learning best practices. If you've come across the series for the first time, you can go back to the beginning or read the whole series. Aristotle was likely one of the first data scientists who studied empiricism by learning through
Using Notepad++ as your SAS code editor
News flash: My favorite SAS code editor is SAS Enterprise Guide. However, my favorite general purpose text editor is Notepad++, and I often find myself using that tool for viewing SAS log files and for making small modifications to SAS programs. Judging from the popularity of this SAS Support Communities
When's the next total solar eclipse?
The U.S. was really fortunate in having the recent total solar eclipse pass through so many of its states! This gave lots of people an opportunity to see it, with just a short (or moderate) drive. I think a little kid spoke for all of us when they said "Let's
What's new for Back to School 2017
This summer we've been busy creating new lessons, adding new features, and revamping our professional development offerings. New and Updated Lessons With the help of our Summer Teacher Institute participants, we're thrilled to kick off the school year with several new and updated interactive lessons (all of which, of course,
PSD2: How new European payment regulations could elevate fraud risk
The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is a new European-wide regulation that requires European banks to make it easier to share customer transaction and account data (where the customer has given their consent) with third party providers, and it's the current hot topic across the payments industry in Europe. As
Learn neural networks and more at Analytics Experience 2017
What’s your favorite time of day? For me, it’s the morning with a cup of coffee, just as the sun starts to appear on the horizon, emitting a pleasant warm glow. My least favorite part of the day? Mornings without coffee when that same big ball of light makes a
How to prepare for a SAS Certification Exam
I have been working in the field of Professional Certification and Licensure for roughly 10 years. In that time, I've worked with and observed close to 40 IT certification programs and there has been a recurring question I've encountered at each stop. While it is often phrased differently, it means mostly the same