Data privacy in a mobile world
.@philsimon says that privacy is your issue as well whether you believe it or not.
English
True Confessions
True confessions. I’ve been working here at SAS for 15+ years and I have never used the Recreation and Fitness Center. That’s not quite true. I frequently go there to get a diet lemonade or a cup of coffee if our machine is not working. I have picked up some discount movie
Character to Numeric Conversion in SAS
How many of you have been given a SAS data set with variables such as Age, Height, and Weight and some or all of them were stored as character values instead of numeric? Probably EVERYONE! Yes, we all know how to do the old "swap and drop" (rename and convert), but
Beer: Finding your favorite that you didn't know about!
Data analysis can be used for many things ... how about finding other beers you might like, so you don't keep drinking the same old brand every time? Hang on tight - I think we're about to make a beer run! I recently read an interesting article on the Flowingdata website,
SAS Jedi Christmas - SAS 9.4 M4 DS2 Do Loop Upgrade
This SAS Jedi is very excited about the SAS 9.4 M4 release, which brought many wonderful gifts just in time for Christmas. So in the interest of extending the Christmas spirit, I'm going to blog about some of my favorites! I've long loved the SAS DO statement variant which allows
Importance of metadata – Bridging the gap (Part 4: analytical metadata usage)
In the previous three blogs in this series, we talked about what metadata can be available from source systems, transformation and movement, and operational usage. For this final blog in the series, I want to discuss the analytical usage of metadata. Let’s set up the scenario. Let's imagine I'm a
The contaminated normal distribution
How can you generate data that contains outliers in a simulation study? The contaminated normal distribution is a simple but useful distribution you can use to simulate outliers. The distribution is easy to explain and understand, and it is also easy to implement in SAS. What is a contaminated normal
SAS Temporary Arrays, Not Just for Experts
SAS temporary arrays are an underutilized jewel in the SAS toolbox. I find that many beginning to intermediate SAS programmers are not familiar with temporary arrays. The good news is that there is nothing complicated about them and they are very useful. First of all, what is a temporary array?
More SAS Studio Tips for SAS Grid Manager Administrators: Global Settings
We have seen in a previous post of this series how to configure SAS Studio to better manage user preferences in SAS Grid environments. There are additional settings that an administrator can leverage to properly configure a multi-user environment; as you may imagine, these options deserve special considerations when SAS Studio
An era of promise and uncertainty for the energy industry
It’s no secret that the US energy landscape has undergone massive changes in recent years: the emergence of cost-effective renewables, the natural gas revolution, the wide-scale penetration of intelligence across energy delivery networks, and soon a new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. All of these changes are impacting different pockets of
Closing out a year of transformation in the communication and media industries
It's that time of year again. Holidays, parties, gifts, cooking, closing annual business, hitting targets and preparing for 2017. Looking back on the year for the communication and media industries, it has been a year of transition for the industry and for many of the customers I work with in my role
Does Mom need help? What to look for during holiday visits
As the holidays approach, one of the highlights (for most of us) is time spent visiting with family. For me, this is one of two times a year when my entire family comes together - and, it has become customary for my two brothers and me to spend a bulk
Learning SAS programming for R users
TL; DR Free training from SAS: "SAS Programming for R Users." Check the available Live Web offerings and register for one that fits your schedule. Or use the free e-Learning version and learn at your own pace. The complete course materials are on the SAS Software GitHub space and you
Linking identifiers for improved analytics
In my last post we started looking at the issue of identifier proliferation, in which different business applications assigned their own unique identifiers to data representing the same entities. Even master data management (MDM) applications are not immune to this issue, particularly because of the inherent semantics associated with the
Who is and is not paying for heat this winter?
The utility industry is ripe with analytic opportunities. Usually, when I share that perspective, thoughts immediately jump to making the energy grid more efficient. Certainly, there are efficiencies to gain with improved data about where power is being consumed and the sources that are available to support it. However, there
Transform your technical talks with an audience centered approach
Editor's note: The following post is from Melissa Marshall, Principal at Melissa Marshall Consulting LLC. Melissa is a featured speaker at SAS Global Forum 2017, and on a mission to transform how scientists and technical professionals present their work. Learn more about Melissa. Think back to the last technical talk you were an
Easier Space Management for EV Data Mart Tables in 9.4M4
The report-ready SAS Environment Manager Data Mart has been an invaluable addition to SAS 9.4 for SAS administrators. The data mart tables are created and maintained by the SAS Environment Manager Service Architecture Framework and provide a source of data for out-of-the box reports as well as custom reports that any
5 Benefits of writing a book with SAS Press
Editor's note: This series of blogs addresses the questions we are most frequently asked at SAS Press! Do you have a great book idea already in mind, or think you might want to write about an analytics or industry topic? Consider writing a SAS Press book or a SAS &
The cost of modernization
Unless you live in England, you may not have seen the recent announcement that Buckingham Palace is to undergo a 10-year refurbishment costing the British taxpayer £369M. Even with the post-Brexit devaluation of Sterling, that’s still a sizable spend representing nearly US$500 million. The Queen will remain in residence during
Happy Holidays from the RFC!
Thank you SAS community for all the fun this year! We truly enjoy each moment with you as you take care of your health both here at SAS and in your adventures around the world! May you be happy, healthy, and loved now and always! While we're talking health.... Don’t
Graphs: Comparing R, Excel, Tableau, SPSS, Matlab, JS, Python, and SAS
Are you a visualization & graphing expert? Can you identify which tool (R, Excel, Tableau, SPSS, Matlab, JS, Python, or SAS) was used to create each of these graphs? No cheating! I recently read Tim Matteson's blog where he presented 18 graphs, and had his readers try to guess which
The path to purchase: holiday edition
I find I am so busy these days, I do all of my holiday shopping online. I set aside an hour, a glass of wine and my credit card, and I get the gifts ordered. The must-have gift for this year was a Dyson hair dryer. When the first site
What makes educator preparation effective?
As states build systems to evaluate the effectiveness of educator preparation programs, they must first know what “effectiveness” looks like. Are the characteristics of the candidates in the program, such as high school GPA, ACT or SAT score, or other admissions criteria, the most important indicators? What about the curriculum
Hotel Text
Yesterday, I published an article on Axis values display, where I mentioned the desire expressed by many users to get x-axis tick values in Hotel text orienttion. The name comes from the way many hotel signs are displayed as shown on the right. Such arrangement of text can also be very
Importance of metadata – Bridging the gap (Part 3: operational metadata usage)
As I discussed in the first two blogs of this series, metadata is useful in a variety of ways. Its importance starts at the source system, and continues through the data movement and transformation processes and into operations. Operational metadata, in particular, gives us information about the execution and completion
Move beyond the 'whys' of CDISC and bridge the gap between theory and practice
I am writing this post with the satisfaction of having Implementing CDISC Using SAS: An End-to-End Guide, Second Edition completed and on the shelf. Once again, it was my pleasure to collaborate with Chris Holland, and I am glad that we had a chance to update the book with current
Dr. Strangeformat or: How I Learned to Stop Joining Tables and Love the PROC
The title of this post borrows from Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 comedy “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” It stars the great Peter Sellers as the titular character as well as George C. Scott and Slim Pickens. The black and white film is strange
4 steps to get started with data governance
Data governance seems to be the hottest topic at data-related conferences this year, and the question I get asked most often is, “where do we start?” Followed closely by how do we do it, what skills do we need, how do we convince the rest of the organisation to get
How good is the MILP solver in SAS/OR?
There has been a lot of speculation over the years about the quality of the optimization solvers in SAS/OR, in particular the mixed integer linear optimization (MILP) solver. Measuring the performance of optimization solvers and comparing different solvers on a test set is a crucial part of modern optimization solver development.
SAS Certification for the Non-Practitioner
Let me make this clear right from the start: I needed to answer 44 of the 62 exam questions correctly to earn my BASE SAS Programmer certification, and I got exactly 44 right. No margin of error. I never thought I’d be proud of a 70%, but I’m more than