There's been a lot of talk in the media lately about the death of retail. Every week, it seems like another retailer announces the closing of stores, acquisitions or even going out of business. Many relate it to the growing competitive landscape with the convenience of online shopping and lure
With busy week nights, some foods don’t make it to the table until the weekend simply due to lack of prep time. But, it’s a shame to narrow some of our favorite foods to only a few nights of the week. So, a quick solution when you’re in time crunch
In a previous article, I showed two ways to define a log-likelihood function in SAS. This article shows two ways to compute maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) in SAS: the nonlinear optimization subroutines in SAS/IML and the NLMIXED procedure in SAS/STAT. To illustrate these methods, I will use the same data
In SAS Viya 3.2, the Self-Service Import provides a mechanism for a user to import (copy) data into the SAS Cloud Analytic Services (CAS) environment. The data is copied as a .sashdat file into the selected CAS Library location when it is imported. Self-Service Import data can only be imported into
Customizing the Kaplan-Meier plot in assorted ways is so popular that we devote an entire chapter to it in the SAS/STAT documentation.
Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a powerful statistical technique that uses optimization techniques to fit parametric models. The technique finds the parameters that are "most likely" to have produced the observed data. SAS provides many tools for nonlinear optimization, so often the hardest part of maximum likelihood is writing down
Registration is now open for the SAS Analytics Experience 2017, being held September 18-20, in Washington, DC. (The Analytics Experience moves to Amsterdam, October 16-18 -- details on that event to follow.) For anyone interested in FVA analysis, Chip Wells and I will be delivering a half-day pre-conference training session
If you were a fan of the original Star Trek television series, you probably remember lots of little details about the show. And you might even feel sorry for the people who don't get the clever references you make to things from the show. If you're that person, then you'll
On a recent trip I met a long time user and early adopter of ODS Graphics who started using GTL with SAS 9.1.3, even before it was released as production with SAS 9.2. This user has presented many papers at SGF on GTL and some hands-on sessions on ODS Graphics Designer.
Utilities can save as much as $10 million a year for every one percent improvement in forecast accuracy by optimizing asset utilization and trading strategies. Changing energy markets and an influx of data from the smart grid are providing more opportunities to reap value from energy forecasting. Improving energy forecasts
In the third post of the 10 Commandments of Applied Econometrics series we discussed the issue of data exploration. Today, I will present the next commandments: keep the solutions simple and use model validation. Keep the models sensibly simple Striking the right balance between simplicity and sophistication: the models created should be neither
"How'd you lose the weight?" It was not a magic pill, special diet, or a shot from the doctor - wouldn't that have been nice? How did I lose my baby weight? I finally got back to what I've been telling folks to do most of my life: eat right
Todd Wright says addressing GDPR compliance might be just the catalyst the insurance industry needs.
In a world that never stands still, especially in the post-Brexit whirlwind the UK will soon be entering, it’s imperative that government is agile and responsive. More importantly, how can this capability be arrived at without breaking the bank? The UK Government recently released its Transformation Strategy 2017 to 2020.
I have previously discussed how to define functions that safely evaluate their arguments and return a missing value if the argument is not in the domain of the function. The canonical example is the LOG function, which is defined only for positive arguments. For example, to evaluate the LOG function
Innovation used to happen in structured cycles. The new invention was often a planned event and the domain of a select few departments within an organisation. But in today's always-on economy enterprises need to innovate on a continuous basis to keep up with new players that base their entire businesses
The ancient political maxim “divide and conquer” (Lat. “dīvide et īmpera”) has been used for millennia in politics, sociology, and psychology, mainly to manipulate people. In the last two centuries, however, this principle has also been adopted by computer science. It is widely used in computer programming, primarily in computer
This past weekend, I was a volunteer helping with an Ironman 70.3 race. I was really impressed & inspired by the athletes ... I was also excited about the quantity and variety of data generated by this type of race (compared to a regular marathon). And as a 'graph guy' I
Two colleagues and I, all former educators, have dealt with education equity gaps both as children and professionally. This is the second post in a series about our experiences. I encourage you to read the first entry, Equity in education: I was a statistic. Many people think of education equity
Wait! Don't close this window. I understand that regular expressions can be very complicated (yes, there are many books on the subject), but some basic expressions to test patterns such as zip codes or telephone numbers are not that difficult. In addition, you can sometimes use Google to search for
I am delighted to have as one of my 2017 College Series’ guest bloggers, Theresa Maitland, PhD. Dr. Maitland is a Senior Learning Specialist and Academic Coach at UNC’s Learning Center. She has co-authored three books and engages in training and consulting with educational institutions. Q: When you think of
Refining your data for effective reports is even easier in the 8.1 release of SAS Visual Analytics. In this blog post, I’ll take a look at the data pane, how it displays data from your active data source, and a few tasks that you might want to perform, such as
At this point in time, Model Risk Management stands at the forefront of risk management for many of today’s financial services organizations. The majority of financial institutions are in the process of developing Model Risk Management frameworks to mitigate model risk and to become more comfortable with their models. However,
As a kid who grew up in the 60s & 70s, I was a big fan of the original Star Trek TV series. And in the years since, I have seen lots of the Star Trek “technology” become a reality: cellphones, portable tablet computers, talking computers (Alexa/Siri), etc. But I
Jim Harris advocates addressing data quality and governance issues on the way to data lakes and Hadoop.
If you toss a coin 28 times, you would not be surprised to see three heads in a row, such as ...THHHTH.... But what about eight heads in a row? Would a sequence such as THHHHHHHHTH... be a rare event? This question popped into my head last weekend as I
To stack the deck means to cheat or to fix something so a desired outcome is achieved. This term originated in card games, but can also be applied to other things. And here, I apply it (both metaphorically and literally) to creating a better graph! I recently saw the following
Opens chest, inner thighs while strengthening back, core and thighs. Goddess Pose (Sanskrit: Utkata Konasana) Begin in Mountain at the front of your mat. Step your left foot back as if you were moving into High Lunge. Turn your entire body to the left turning toes out to corners of
Approaches to risk assessment and management are changing. There has been a radical alteration in the nature of risk in many sectors, in that the biggest threat that many companies now face is from disruption of their business model by start-ups. This has meant that traditional approaches to risk—the appointment
