Have you heard the term “analytics economy” and wondered what it means? Or maybe you’ve wondered how your organization can use data and analytics to achieve economic gains. Now we have more than just data. We have accessible data, fueled by advances in compute power and connectivity, and interpreted by ever-more powerful
In my 25 years at SAS, I‘ve noticed the continued use of important algorithms, such as logistic regression and decision trees, which I’m sure will continue to be steady staples for data scientists. After all, they’re easy-to-use, interpretable algorithms. However, they’re not always the most accurate and stable classifiers. To
Toe bone connected to the foot bone, Foot bone connected to the leg bone, Leg bone connected to the knee bone,... — American Spiritual, "Dem Bones" Last week I read an interesting article on Robert Kosara's data visualization blog. Kosara connected the geographic centers of the US zip codes in
Whether you are a SAS code creator, a blogger, a technical writer, an editor-in-chief, an executive, a secretary, a developer or programmer in any programming language or simply someone who uses computer or hand-held device for writing, you need to read this blog post – your life is about to
The SGPLOT procedure (as well as other ODS Graphics procedures) does a great job of creating nice- looking output with very little coding. However, there are times when you want to make adjustments to the output's appearance. For those occasions, we have an ATTRS for that! The statements in PROC
“War is 90% information”, said Napoleon Bonaparte. Though the famous French general didn’t live in the information age, he attributed most of his military achievements to having the right information. Today’s business is similar - more and more companies are looking for a competitive advantage in data, more precisely useful
You might not know it by looking at me (I’m rounding up when I tell people I’m 5’8”) but I’m a huge basketball fan. I’ve been following the sport since I was 10, coaching it for the last decade and playing on teams throughout my life, still dedicating my winters
The government has an unfathomable amount of data -- and it grows more and more each year. This puts agencies in a unique and important position to use that data for good. Whether it be improving government operations, solving some of the nation’s biggest challenges or empowering citizens in new
If you have recently had a baby you’ve likely heard of baby led weaning (BLW). The concept has been around for centuries, but it has become much more popular in the last few years. Baby led weaning is one way to start solids. Basically, it means that baby is allowed
This article shows how to simulate data from a mixture of multivariate normal distributions, which is also called a Gaussian mixture. You can use this simulation to generate clustered data. The adjacent graph shows three clusters, each simulated from a four-dimensional normal distribution. Each cluster has its own within-cluster covariance,
This is the final post in my series of machine learning best practices. If you missed the earlier posts, start at the beginning, or read the whole series by clicking on the image to the right. While post four in the series was about combining different types of models, this
Every fall, highways, backroads and neighborhood streets nationwide take on a noticeable yellow hue, as school buses carefully and methodically transport students back to school. In some areas, including Boston, this massive transportation exercise can present a number of challenges. Boston Public Schools (BPS) provided transportation for 25,000 students via
With Hurricane Irma recently pummeling pretty much the entire state of Florida, I got to wondering where past hurricanes have hit the state. Let's get some data, and figure out how to best analyze it using SAS software! I did a bit of web searching, and found the following map
Phil Simon weighs in on the value of getting your own hands dirty using self-service data prep.
If you’ve got SAS running within your organization, which is likely considering that over 90 percent of the largest global firms have SAS, you’ve probably been hearing a lot about SAS® Viya™, which drives many of the latest enhancements of the SAS platform. But amidst all the talk about microservices
Did you know that you can get SAS to compute symbolic (analytical) derivatives of simple functions, including applying the product rule, quotient rule, and chain rule? SAS can form the symbolic derivatives of single-variable functions and partial derivatives of multivariable functions. Furthermore, the derivatives are output in a form that
Bar charts in SGPLOT procedure have some new features that everyone may not be familiar with. In this article we will create bar charts with color response on linear axes. Normally, the VBAR statement treats the x-axis as discrete, placing each unique value by itself, equally spaced on the x-axis.
Stretches torso and arm & strengthens ankles, knees, legs, abdomen, buttocks and spine; Cultivates balance, opens chest and shoulders Balancing Half Moon (Sanskrit: Ardha Chandrasana)
It's time to share another tip about working with ZIP files in SAS. Since I first wrote about FILENAME ZIP to list and extract files from a ZIP archive, readers have been asking for more. Specifically, they want additional details about the files that are contained in a ZIP, including
As Hurricane Irma makes its way through the Caribbean, and heads towards the United States, the big question on everyone's mind ... is the hurricane going to hit my city? Or, as some people like to say, "should I buy milk & bread?" Let's analyze & map some data to
In SAS Visual Analytics 8.1, report creators have the ability to include drive-distance and drive-time in their geographical maps, but only if their site has an Esri ArcGIS Online account and they have valid credentials for the account. In the user Settings for SAS Visual Analytics Geographic Mapping 8.1 release,
I suppose we've all been watching Hurricane Irma rip through the Caribbean like a giant buzzsaw blade, with wind speeds over 180mph. This is one of those rare Category 5 storms. But just how rare are Category 5 hurricanes? According to the Wikipedia page, hurricanes with wind speeds >=157mph are
If you use SAS regression procedures, you are probably familiar with the "stars and bars" notation, which enables you to construct interaction effects in regression models. Although you can construct many regression models by using that classical notation, a friend recently reminded me that the EFFECT statement in SAS provides
This is the seventh post in my series of machine best practices. Catch up by reading the first post or the whole series now. Generalization is the learned model’s ability to fit well to new, unseen data instead of the data it was trained on. Overfitting refers to a model that fits
Managing big data doesn't always mean hiring more people and buying new tools.
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
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
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
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
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
