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.
When you count the outcomes of an experiment, you do not always observe all of the possible outcomes. For example, if you roll a six-sided die 10 times, it might be that the "1" face does not appear in those 10 rolls. Obviously, this situation occurs more frequently with small
There is so much going on in our country right now socially, that I feel like someone has just placed a soapbox in front of me and dared me to climb up. Never one to resist, let's talk about parenting in shifting sands. Talking to your kids (of all ages) about
I’m not a big gambler, but there is something I would put my money on – analytics. Analytics is helping companies turn information into value. And yes, I mean money. If you want to learn about the latest analytics trends and get in on some of that “value” – attend
In recent years, we practitioners in the data management world have been pretty quick to conflate “data governance” with “data quality” and “metadata.” Many tools marketed under "data governance" have emerged – yet when you inspect their capabilities, you see that in many ways these tools largely encompass data validation and data standardization. Unfortunately, we
What is it that people like so much about motorcycles? The thrill/excitement/freedom of riding them, the 'biker image' portrayed in movies, or great songs such as Little Honda by the Hondells? I'm not a biker per say, but I do have a couple of motorcycles, and am a known associate
Word clouds have been available in SAS Visual Analytics for a while now, but recently, sentiment analysis was added to their functionality. For those of you not familiar with word clouds, a word cloud, also known as a tag cloud, is a visual representation of text data. You are probably
When I am computing with SAS/IML matrices and vectors, I often want to label the columns or rows so that I can better understand the data. The labels are called headers, and the COLNAME= and ROWNAME= options in the SAS/IML PRINT statement enable you to add headers for columns and
When ODS Graphics was first released with SAS 9.2 in 2008, a conscious effort was made to create graphs that were consistent and aesthetically pleasing out of the box. Features in the graph derive their visual attributes from the active Style. When Group classifications are in effect, the different classification
The school year may be over, but it’s not too late to renew your SAS Users Group registration for 2015. Or, if you have always wanted to start a new Users Group in your area or company, you still have time to register a new group and receive support this
Greece has been in the news lately, trying to secure funds to repay 1.5 billion euros to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of the month. And as luck would have it, there is some data available and some graphs to be created ... I love this job!
Nope - we're not digging up mummies in pyramids and analyzing the gender - this blog is about population pyramid charts and "digging into data"! But since the title might have lured in some pyramid fans, here's a picture of my friend Angela posing beside a pyramid - pretty cool, eh?!?
If you buying or selling a house. The relator will tell the value of the property is all about location, location, location. For insurance companies location is just as important. For an underwriter assessing the risk on a property is essential that they consider the location of the property. How
After doing some recent research with IDC®, I got to thinking again about the reasons that organizations of all sizes in all industries are so slow at adopting analytics as part of their ‘business as usual’ operations. While I have no hard statistics on who is and who isn’t adopting
In 2013, Rick Wicklin blogged about visualizing matrices as heat maps using SAS/IML. That post reminded me that we had done a similar thing for the coefficient matrices in our optimization problems. In particular, we have developed some SAS macros to visualize the input data sets for the OPTLP (linear
Bubble Plots provide additional ways to visualize your data. The plot supports display of multiple response characteristics of the data in one graph. Bubble plots were introduced with SAS 9.3 in GTL and SG Procedures. A bubble is drawn at each (x, y) point in the graph, and each bubble is
In just one weekend Shang-Hua Wu went from a SAS user to a super SAS user by getting not just one, but two SAS certifications – SAS Certified Base Programmer and SAS Certified Advanced Programmer. Wu wanted to earn his certifications to position himself for new career opportunities in the
Updated Oct 2023 You may have heard that the World Health Organization (WHO) released its new Sugar Guidelines which recommend keeping Added Sugar to less than 5% of our total calories or 6 teaspoons of Added Sugar per day. To give you an idea of what 5% of your total
In my article about finding an initial guess for root-finding algorithms, I stated that Newton's root-finding method "might not converge or might converge to a root that is far away from the root that you wanted to find." A reader wanted more information about that statement. I have previously shown
If you use a GPS system or a mapping app on your phone, you're familiar with geospatial intelligence. But did you know this same technology can be used to map the spread of diseases, to understand the spread of wildfires, to visualize environmental issues - and much more? The proliferation
The SAS Global Certification program is proud to announce the release of a new credential: SAS Certified Visual Business Analyst Using SAS Visual Analytics. This credential is designed for analysts who are using SAS Visual Analytics to explore data and create insightful data visualizations. With SAS Visual Analytics now deployed in over
Big data. Streaming data. Complex data. We’ve all heard the reasons why organizations feel like they’re facing an insurmountable data challenge. Now, it’s time to do something about it. For the past few years, SAS has helped some of the world’s leading companies make sense of an avalanche of data.
Discovery Channel's Shark Week starts July 5, 2015 - and I've created a special SAS map & graph of shark attacks in North Carolina to get you in the mood for their week of shark education! But first, to get you in the mood for my blog, here's a picture
.@philsimon on the new challenges of data governance.
Hello, I’m Jennifer Waller, your SAS Global Forum 2016 conference chair. This is the first of several blogs I’ll be writing to help keep you informed about the conference and ways you can get involved. Because of my background in education, I’m especially excited about a new initiative at this
