Pomegranates are popping up everywhere and are in everything from ice cream and rice cakes to body wash and even candles! So what’s the big deal about pomegranates?
A heat map is a graphical representation of a matrix that uses colors to represent values in the matrix cells. Heat maps often reveal the structure of a matrix. There are three common applications of visualizing matrices with heat maps: Visualizing a correlation or covariance matrix reveals relationships between variables.
Maybe you already have big data plans, a data governance counsel and an advanced analytics platform. Do you still need a center of excellence for analytics or BI? Watch this video, or read the list below to find out if you could benefit from creating a centralized team to manage
My oh my… It makes me happy to see that most of our blog readers have been very good this year. You know, the elves have been especially busy keeping track of predicting the probability that you will be naughty or nice. This really cuts down on the last minute
This blog shows several "graphical analytics" examples, using holiday-related data... Since we're in the holiday season, I thought I would pull together several examples of my SAS graphs & maps of holiday-related topics (similar to my holiday blog in 2012, if you're a "long term follower"). Some are nice/technical examples, and
My family always travels over the winter holiday so I spend lots of time planning to be away. My desk is littered with lists and notes. Things to do now. Things I mustn’t forget for next year. Special events and dates. Holiday schedules. Important bits of information to share with
When learning a new language, it is important to learn to interpret error messages that come from the language's parser or compiler. Three years ago I blogged about how to interpret SAS/IML error messages. However, many questions have been posted to the SAS/IML Support Community that indicate that some people
It is always a pleasure to attend SAS user conferences, regional conferences and in-house events. In addition to presenting papers, seminars and super demos to the attendees myself, my favorite activity is to attend presentations by users that include graphical data visualization. These include using SG procedures, GTL, Designer or SAS/GRAPH. This year
Over the years, in all my roles within SAS, I've been asked by customers, friends, family and all sorts of people, "What does SAS do?" Bottom-line: SAS delivers results across the organization, because that is what it was designed to do. Specifically, SAS was designed to deliver analytic results, which
As the International Year of Statistics comes to a close, I've been reflecting on the role statistics plays in our modern society. Of course, statistics provides estimates, forecasts, and the like, but to me the great contribution of statistics is that it enables us to deal with uncertainty in a
I’m not a coupon junkie. In fact, I feel like a coupon victim. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t get an avalanche of offers from: Email. Snail mail (in catalogs, flyers, coupon books, etc.). In-store flyers. Mobile apps. Store checkout. The vast majority get tossed in my garbage
Writing a book about SAS (or any computer software) is both gratifying and frustrating. It's gratifying because there are so many SAS users in the world, and it feels good when you can share your expertise with them. It's also gratifying to have a volume that you can point to
Do you analyze data for a city, town, or utility? ... And do you wonder how you can graphically analyze your data? Here are 24 examples to help you! Click the screen-captures below to go to the samples page, where you can see the full-size interactive samples (and also download
Each year my siblings choose names for a Christmas gift exchange. It is not unusual for a sibling to pick her own name, whereupon the name is replaced into the hat and a new name is drawn. In fact, that "glitch" in the drawing process was a motivation for me
Dear friends of SAS Publications, there are only a few weeks left in 2013 and we are all busy with year-end work and holiday preparations. Good to see that I get help from my two books, Data Preparation for Analytics Using SAS and Data Quality for Analytics Using SAS who
As the “Year of Statistics” comes to a close, I write this blog in support of the many statisticians who carefully fulfil their analysis tasks day by day, and to defend what may appear to be demanding behavior when it comes to data requirements. How do statisticians get this reputation? Are we
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” ~ Warren G. Bennis The promise of digital manufacturing is drawing closer to
There are 2 kinds of people in the world -- those who dread change, and those who look forward to it. Which kind of person are you, when it comes to upgrading your SAS software?!? With most software (such as Windows OS, Facebook, Gmail, etc) I tend to fall into
Another day, another scam defrauding insurers and governments. For purposes of full disclosure, the case I'm highlighting today comes from Washington's Labor and Industries (L&I), the agency where I formerly worked and headed up fraud prevention efforts, and the investigation dates back to my time there. During my time there,
“Dear Cat, In a repeated measures drug study, I am unsure what to do with the baseline measurement. Since it is one of the time points in my study, I feel like I should use it as one of the dependent variable measurements. But I have seen analyses where baseline
If you write an n x p matrix from PROC IML to a SAS data set, you'll get a data set with n rows and p columns. For some applications, it is more convenient to write the matrix in a "long format" with np observations and three columns. The first
In recent conversations with many SAS users at NESUG, SESUG and WUSS, a pattern emerges on the question of creating graphs with SAS or R. Many SAS users are aware of the new graph features in SAS that create high quality graphs with minimum fuss. But, many have not actually used
Are you in the market for a new car? Perhaps you are researching how the various parameters of cars match up to each other? Well, in SAS 9.4 Maintenance 1 release, ODS Graphics will support a new versatile plot: the polygon plot. As the name suggests, it lets you draw
This is a continuing topic of the SAS Administration and Performance blog series. In the last edition, I discussed why you need to do a technical assessment prior to planning your SAS deployment. Yes, this step takes time, but you’ll find it far easier to implement the suggested tuning guidelines
The holiday season is here, and you're probably wondering how to shop for that picky SAS Enterprise Guide user on your gift list. I've got a few ideas for you, and the price is right! Here are links to 11 custom tasks that are free to download, easy to install,
. . . getting to know all about you! Everyone says it—getting to know other SAS users is the best part of a SAS conference. The other “best part” are the resources available in the exhibits and demo areas. I’d have to agree. Well, this year’s organizers at the 2013
What's your favorite part of attending SAS Global Forum? With the many presentations, networking event and valuable SAS knowledge available, many attendees may find it difficult to pick just one thing. I asked the Best Contributed Paper winners from SAS Global Forum 2013 to share both their most memorable moment from
For several years, there has been interest in calling R from SAS software, primarily because of the large number of special-purpose R packages. The ability to call R from SAS has been available in SAS/IML since 2009. Previous blog posts about R include a video on how to call R
Wavelet analysis is an exciting and relatively new field of study that enables one to extract underlying patterns either from spatially varying or temporally varying data. Pixel values representing the relative brightness and color that constitute an image are an example of spatially varying data, and daily variations of financial
The No. 1 retail trend for 2014 will be innovation powered by advanced analytics. Why? Because retailers with the ability to surface and validate new ideas from customer data will be able to test new ideas faster, launch them faster in stores, and roll out profitable programs faster. Transformation today
