Recently a SAS customer asked how to Winsorize data in SAS. Winsorization is best known as a way to construct robust univariate statistics. The Winsorized mean is a robust estimate of location. The Winsorized mean is similar to the trimmed mean, and both are described in the documentation for PROC
In a SAS Environment there is a lot of metadata, metadata about configuration such as server definitions, users, groups and roles and metadata about content like data, reports and jobs etc. SAS Administrators often want to report on metadata. They want to know what reports have been developed and where they are stored, what
Dust off that old aphorism about an ounce of prevention. Oil companies applying analytics for predictive maintenance can see a substantial downtick in the unanticipated equipment repairs that quickly eat into an oil well’s profitability. Maintenance is far from a trivial concern in the oilfield. A pumping oil well is
Guess what? Data governance can be considered a bottleneck and a bothersome activity at some organizations. So let’s discuss how NOT TO BE the BOTTLENECK. Defining what the data governance initiative will entail is very important here.
Update: The winning sessions are Data mining - open source integration with SAS and Forecasting - multistage models for highly seasonal and/or sparse demand series. Get registered for the conference today. We'll see you in Las Vegas! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Analytics 2015 conference in Las Vegas, Oct. 26 and 27 is designed for
Little known fact: My dad started teaching me how to drive (stick-shift) at age 12 and the first episode was an emotional disaster…for both of us. I don’t think my Dad had thought this through. He was introducing me to all aspects of driving (steering, braking and accelerating with a
As my colleague Margaret Crevar recently wrote, it is useful to know how long SAS programs take to run. Margaret and others have written about how to use the SAS FULLSTIMER option to monitor the performance of the SAS system. In fact, SAS distributes a macro that enables you to
During the week of July 13-17, 2015 most optimization experts will attend the 22nd International Symposium on Mathematical Programming (ISMP2015), which is this year's most important optimization conference. Several members of the SAS/OR team will attend. We will give various talks during the week, here is our schedule.
The smart grid is a technology infrastructure that adds intelligent capabilities to the electricity distribution system. When you apply analytics to the smart grid data, you can automate and improve operations, maintenance, planning and customer satisfaction - among other processes. As utilities continue to upgrade meters, transformers, and add new sensors and equipment,
Bald eagles, the national bird of the United States, came perilously close to becoming extinct here, but are now making a comeback! Let's look at the data with a SAS map! When I was growing up in the 1970s & 80s here in North Carolina, I spent a lot of time
With all of the discussion about big data these days, it is easy to think that every problem is a big data problem. Yes, there is a lot of data out there these days, and of course we all love a nice big data set, but you don’t always need
One of the great things that the new Data Mart will do for you is combine data from all the machines found in a multi-machine deployment into one storage area, where it is used to create many of the reports found in the Report Center. This capability began with the 14w41
.@philsimon on whether companies should apply some radical tactics to DG.
The insurance industry is heading for a crisis. Depending on which report you read the insurance industry is facing a shortfall in job vacancy from anything from 40,000 to nearly half million in the next few years. Baby boomers in specialized jobs like underwriters and claims adjusters are retiring and insurers
As monsoon season begins, many Nepal earthquake victims have shelter over their heads thanks in part to an unlikely intersection of two SAS global development projects. The first project is with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). IOM is the first responder to any crisis that displaces people. IOM provides
I've seen some crazy process flows in SAS Enterprise Guide. Crazy-big, and crazy-complex, used by real customers to accomplish real work. But while these process flows represent a ton of work, this is usually a calculated investment to automate processes that would be difficult to capture in another way. For
I just spent much of the past week watching and trying to ride waves on the North Carolina coast. Small waves, mind you, nothing spectacular and certainly nothing that you would consider edgy or life-altering. Nothing that big wave surfers like Laird Hamilton, Garrett McNamara and others of their substance
We’ve all heard that dark leafy greens are good for us. Did you know that dark green leafy vegetables, calorie for calorie, are considered one of the most nutrient-dense foods available!
You've probably heard of a random walk, but have you heard about the drunkard's walk? I've previously written about how to simulate a one-dimensional random walk in SAS. In the random walk, you imagine a person who takes a series of steps where the step size and direction is a
This is my second blog on the topic of anonymization, which I’ve spent some time over the past several months researching. My first blog, Anonymization for data managers, focused on the technical process. Now let’s dive into the role for analysts, report designers and information owners. To analysts and reporting
This SAS author tip is from Robert Virgile, author of “SAS Macro Language Magic: Discovering Advanced Techniques”. It actually came about when a reader posted a comment on one of Virgile’s blogs. Thank you to that reader for their comment! Technically, %INCLUDE is not part of macro language. Yes, it
As you travel around the world, do you know where English, French, Spanish, and Arabic are spoken? This blog will help you quickly answer that question, with some cool SAS maps! But first, here's a picture of my friend Joy posing beside an interesting sign during one of her international
Yes. But since this post needs to be more than a one-word answer to its title, allow me to elaborate. Data governance (DG) enters into the discussion of all enterprise information initiatives. Whether or not DG should be the opening salvo of these discussions is akin to asking whether the
What does the future of analytics look like in your organizations enterprise architecture? Does it include thinking about a two speed approach to analytics which includes both: An agile rapidly changing analytics platform for innovation (a lab) seperated from operations and broad enterprise audience usage A slowly moving systematic enterprise analytics platform (a factory)
SAS/IML software is used by many SAS programmers, primarily for creating custom algorithms and macros that implement statistical analyses that are not built into any SAS procedure. I know that PROC IML is used regularly by pharmaceutical companies, by the financial and insurance industries, and by researchers in medical colleges
The SGPANEL procedure makes it easy to create graph panels that are classified by one or more classifiers. The "Panel" layout is the default and it places the classifier values in cell headers at the top of each cell. When using LAYOUT=Latice or RowLattice, the row headers are placed at
If your organization is large enough, it probably has multiple data-related initiatives going on at any given time. Perhaps a new data warehouse is planned, an ERP upgrade is imminent or a data quality project is underway. Whatever the initiative, it may raise questions around data governance – closely followed by discussions about the
I’ve spent some time over the past couple of months learning more about anonymization. This began with an interest in the technical methods used to protect sensitive personally-identifiable information in a SAS data warehouse and analytics platform we delivered for a customer. But I learned that anonymization has two rather different meanings; one in the
Update: This blog has been updated with the 2016 map. You can use SAS for just about anything - that includes finding a great fireworks show to watch during the US Independence Day holiday! Here's a fireworks-locator map I created using SAS (see technical details below). The red dots represent
Summertime has arrived! Here are some fun, serious and what some might think are absurd questions about water safety. Take the quiz and test your knowledge.
