Last week I was asked a simple question: "How do I choose a seed for the random number functions in SAS?" The answer might surprise you: use any seed you like. Each seed of a well-designed random number generator is likely to give rise to a stream of random numbers,
One of the strengths of the SGPLOT procedure in SAS is the ease with which you can overlay multiple plots on the same graph. For example, you can easily combine the SCATTER and SERIES statements to add a curve to a scatter plot. However, if you try to overlay incompatible
My presentation at SAS Global Forum 2016 was titled "Writing Packages: A New Way to Distribute and Use SAS/IML Programs." The paper was published in the conference proceedings several months ago, but I recently recorded a short video that gives an overview of using and creating packages in SAS/IML 14.1:
One of my favorite new features in PROC SGPLOT in SAS 9.4m2 is addition of the COLORRESPONSE= and COLORMODEL= options to the SCATTER statement. By using these options, it is easy to color markers in a scatter plot so that the colors indicate the values of a continuous third variable.
In a previous post I showed how to download, install, and use packages in SAS/IML 14.1. SAS/IML packages incorporate source files, documentation, data sets, and sample programs into a ZIP file. The PACKAGE statement enables you to install, uninstall, and manage packages. You can load functions and data into your
My previous post highlighted presentations at SAS Global Forum 2016 that heavily used SAS/IML software. Several of the authors clearly want to share their work with the wider SAS analytical community. They include their SAS/IML program in an appendix or mention a web site or email address from which the
My previous blog post shows how to use PROC LOGISTIC and spline effects to predict the probability that an NBA player scores from various locations on a court. The LOGISTIC procedure fits parametric models, which means that the procedure estimates parameters for every explanatory effect in the model. Spline bases
You can use histograms to visualize the distribution of data. A comparative histogram enables you to compare two or more distributions, which usually represent subpopulations in the data. Common subpopulations include males versus females or a control group versus an experimental group. There are two common ways to construct a
In a previous post, I discussed using discrete-event simulation to validate an optimization model and its underlying assumptions. A similar approach can be used to validate queueing models as well. And when it is found that the assumptions required for a queueing model are not a good fit for the
I had the pleasure of speaking at the inaugural “Accounting IS Big Data” conference this past week in New York City, a meeting organized by the American Accounting Association. In addition to giving several talks, I participated in breakout sessions in which attendees discussed how analytics is used to monitor
SAS/OR 14.1, which became available on July 14, delivers a number of new and enhanced features in optimization and simulation. These changes are designed to make SAS/OR even easier to use and to enable you to model and solve larger, more complex problems more efficiently. If you're using SAS/OR now,
When SAS 9.4m3 was released last month (including SAS/STAT and SAS/IML 14.1), I was happy to see that a HEATMAP statement had been added to the SGPLOT procedure. Although heat maps in the SAS/IML language have been available for several releases, you previously had to use the Graph Template Language
Last week, SAS released the 14.1 version of its analytics products, which are shipped as part of the third maintenance release of 9.4. If you run SAS/IML programs from a 64-bit Windows PC, you might be interested to know that you can now create matrices with about 231 ≈ 2
SAS 9 has supported calling R from the SAS/IML language since 2009. The interface to R is part of the SAS/IML language. However, there have been so many versions of SAS and R since 2009, that it is hard to remember which SAS release supports which versions of R. The
How old is your version of SAS software? The graph on the left shows the release dates for various releases of SAS software, beginning with SAS 8.0. The graph is based on a graph on Jiangtang Hu's blog that shows the major SAS releases. As this graph demonstrates, SAS software
