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
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
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
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
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
David Loshin explains how to set up a data catalog that will help you get more value from a data lake.
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
This example shows how to create two coordinated range attribute maps and use them in creating an animated gif of the eclipse.
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
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
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
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
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
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
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATION STANDARDS is an organisation defining international standards in business communication and presenting proposals relating to designing easy-to-understand business reports and presentations.
There is an expression in the military that goes something like this: Military leaders train and prepare for the next war using available information, which typically means they're planning for the last (previous) war -- and that's a recipe for disaster. So what does this have to do with utilities
No time to prepare healthy meals during the week? Find yourself eating out more often than you’d like or skipping meals altogether because you don’t have food in the fridge? Wondering how to make eating real, whole food easier? Batch cooking is your new secret weapon!
In this guest blogger post, Chris Gray of Gray Research weighs in on the discussion of forecasting vs. budgeting. Chris Gray on Forecasting vs. Budgeting Generally I agree with Steve Morlidge’s points about the differences between forecasts (or sales plans) and budgets, and the fact that they are unlikely to
All statisticians are familiar with the classical arithmetic mean. Some statisticians are also familiar with the geometric mean. Whereas the arithmetic mean of n numbers is the sum divided by n, the geometric mean of n nonnegative numbers is the n_th root of the product of the numbers. The geometric
Chris Gray of Gray Research is a longtime contributor to the practice of Sales and Operations Planning. He is author of several books on S&OP, software selection, and other supply chain related areas, including Sales and Operations Planning Standard System (2007). In 2006 he co-authored Sales & Operations Planning –
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) invests in education and training to create the next generation of conservation leaders from around the world. These leaders go on to have a powerful influence on the fate of the world’s most biodiverse and vulnerable places. While scores of leaders benefit from WWF’s support, many
The stored compiled macro facility enables you to compile and save your macro definition in a permanent catalog in a library that you specify. The macro is compiled only once. When you call the macro in the current and subsequent SAS® sessions, SAS executes the compiled code from the macro
Get on with your day faster by taking a self-service approach to data preparation.
Hopefully if you're viewing the eclipse today, you'll be using one of the safe methods that won't harm your eyes! ... But if you're somewhat of a trickster, here's an optical illusion you can send your friends after the eclipse, that might make them wonder (just for a second) if
When you implement a statistical algorithm in a vector-matrix language such as SAS/IML, R, or MATLAB, you should measure the performance of your implementation, which means that you should time how long a program takes to analyze data of varying sizes and characteristics. There are some general tips that can
Motivated by Ted Conway's post on creating a sequence of graphs showing the Solar Eclipse, I thought it would be fun to extend his code and create a gif animation. I used a frame count to 81, and used the printerpath feature to create the animation using SGPLOT with BY
SAS programmers have high expectations for their coding environment, and why shouldn't they? Companies have a huge investment in their SAS code base, and it's important to have tools that help you understand that code and track changes over time. Few things are more satisfying as a SAS program that
Long category values occur frequently in real world use cases. This can happen with graphs for analysis of clinical research data, and also for graphs showing survey data where the question asked may be long (even a paragraph). Managing such long categories on the x or y axis is always
This blog post provides the steps for applying color and an easy-to-read layout to make the sas.servers script look cute and even fun!
The revised EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2) has been a focal point for the financial services industry over the last couple of years and its adoption is set to revolutionise the payment ecosystem in Europe. New entrants, innovative technologies and increased regulation are already posing major challenges to traditional banks
