SAS' Ghohui Wu shows you how to construct spatial weights matrices based on contiguity and distance measures, then shows how PROC CSPATIALREG automates spatial regression model selection.
In the previous section of this series we discussed ways of assessing the relationship between variables. This week we change the focus to the shape and sparsity of our dataset. One area of Explanatory Data Analysis which we’ve missed so far is the impact of missingness in data. Having missing
Underperforming schools can cast a shadow over the community. Not only do students suffer, but the downstream effects of poor performance can be felt across school funding, teacher retention, morale and the local economy. When one of the top 20 K-12 school districts in the US received a “C” ranking
Do you ever use a permutation matrix to change the order of rows or columns in a matrix? Did you know that there is a more efficient way in matrix-oriented languages such as SAS/IML, MATLAB, and R? Remember the following tip: Never multiply with a large permutation matrix! Instead, use
I'm excited to curate a series of posts focused on CAS Actions. However, before I dive into details and code, I thought I'd take a moment to lay a foundation for a better understanding of CAS and CAS actions. I'll cover things here at a high level as there's quite
I'm excited to bring a series of posts centered on CAS Actions. The topics in the list below will be covered in posts set to publish in the next few weeks. Please check back often for new releases. CAS Actions and Action Sets - a brief intro - Introduction to the
Unstructured text data is ubiquitous in both business and government and extracting value from it at scale is a common challenge. Organizations that have been around for a while often have vast paper archives. Digitizing these archives does not necessarily make them usable for search and analysis, since documents are
Breastfeeding. Exercise. You don’t usually see these two words together, but motherhood is like that – a beautiful dance of balancing necessity with fun, effort with ease, joy and tears. In honor of World Breastfeeding Awareness Month, we’re talking breastfeeding here on SAS Life. Today’s topic: Breastfeeding and Exercise. Can
The predicted “Great Resignation” is underway, with the US Labor Department reporting people quitting jobs in record numbers, with 4 million doing so in April alone. At the same time, companies are expected to step up hiring, with 77 percent of executives in a recent poll claiming they plan to
In a previous article, I discussed a beautiful painting called "Phantom’s Shadow, 2018" by the Nigerian-born artist, Odili Donald Odita. I noted that if you overlay a 4 x 4 grid on the painting, then each cell contains a four-bladed pinwheel shape. The cells display rotations and reflections of the pinwheel. The
In the previous section of this series we looked at basic summary statistics. In this article we start to consider the relationships between variables in our dataset. As part of your Explanatory Data Analysis it is worth looking for correlation between variables. Generally, when referring to correlation we mean the
Thousands of SAS users are migrating from SAS University Edition to SAS OnDemand for Academics (ODA). I thought I would share some of my thoughts, having just finished two books using ODA (Getting Started with SAS Programming: Using SAS Studio in the Cloud and A Gentle Introduction to Statistics Using
Within both the business world and our personal lives, data is becoming increasingly intrinsic to everything we do. Whether it’s picking which restaurant to order from, a tailored advert or figuring out the quickest route home, data is a part of our everyday decision making. For businesses, the value of
Art evokes an emotional response in the viewer, but sometimes art also evokes a cerebral response. When I see patterns and symmetries in art, I think about a related mathematical object or process. Recently, a Twitter user tweeted about a painting called "Phantom’s Shadow, 2018" by the Nigerian-born artist, Odili
Some claim that deaths in the US have been increasing, and some claim they have been decreasing. Which do you think is correct? Let's take a look at the data ... The Data Here in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a good/official source of data
Economists and forecasters have painted a gloomy picture of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK society. The impact of lockdowns and travel restrictions on many sectors of the economy was expected to put businesses at risk and pull millions of families into financial hardship. In the energy and
In this Q&A with MIT/SMR Connections, Gavin Day, Senior Vice President of Technology at SAS, shares real-life examples of artificial intelligence (AI) at work, discusses picking the right problems to solve with AI, dispels a common misconception about AI, and defines AI success. Q: Could you describe some especially interesting
Throughout its history, the United States has invested in infrastructure that leverages new technologies and helps society and its economy thrive. With the advent of trains in the early 1800s, four of the country’s five transcontinental railroads were built with assistance from the federal government. When cars replaced horses and
As an example, when using ordinary least squares regression (OLS), if your response or dependent attribute’s residuals are not normally distributed, your analysis is likely going to be affected and typically not in a good way. The farther away your input data is from normality, the impact on your model
Are you bothered by a runny nose for hours after eating certain foods? Or brain fog or joint pain the morning after straying from your normal eating pattern? Do you avoid eating in unfamiliar restaurants for fear of the aftermath? If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you may have
Beloved Dummies: Let’s demystify another #AI-hype today: predictive maintenance. Yet another one of these buzzwords that require batteries of #DataScientists and truckloads of programmers. Let me show you how Dummies like you and me can address this. What is predictive maintenance? So we’re talking maintenance of machinery. Sure, you can
"With great power comes great responsibility." I'm not sure exactly where this quote comes from, but I think everyone should keep it in mind when creating graphs and maps! There are many design decisions that can influence how the end user perceives the data in a graph. For example: The
The last year and a half has certainly exacerbated many stresses that people were already facing. Unfortunately for many, complicated dynamics and tensions with family were not immune during this time. I was curious to look back at previous Work/Life posts that address difficult dynamics. Although all were created pre-pandemic,
In the past, the COMPRESS function was useful. Since SAS version 9, it has become a blockbuster, and you might not have noticed. The major change was the addition of a new optional parameter called MODIFIERS. The traditional use of the COMPRESS function was to remove blanks or a list
If the big banks won’t help when times are tough, customers will turn to smaller, simpler providers. And once they’ve switched, banks will struggle to win them back. I’ve written before about how banks are an essential part of the UK’s social fabric. Our economy depends on the availability of
Following on from my last blog introducing the series, in this section, we’ll take a first look at Explanatory Data Analysis with basic summary statistics. Getting started with a new dataset in analytics can be daunting. It can help when first looking at a dataset to start with basic summary
A SAS programmer recently asked why his SAS program and his colleague's R program display different estimates for the quantiles of a very small data set (less than 10 observations). I pointed the programmer to my article that compares the nine common definitions for sample quantiles. The article has a
SAS' Ben Yarbrough reveals the four questions to answer and four steps to take as you transition to SAS Viya.
How long do dogs live? ... That's a good/tough question. Some live longer than others, but what are the determining factors? Let's throw some data to this problem, and see if we can fetch some answers! But before we get started, how about a random picture to get you into
How do you convince decision makers in your enterprise to give a machine learning (ML) project the green light? You might be super excited about machine learning – as many of us are – and might think that this stuff should basically sell itself! The value proposition can seem totally
