The World Health Organization recently declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency. This virus is spread by certain mosquitoes, and therefore if we know where those mosquitoes are located, then we've got a pretty good idea of where the virus might spread. Before we get to the numbers, here
Groundhog Day is one of those quirky bits of Americana that add richness and flavor to life. Everyone likes Groundhog Day. It’s a fun, light-hearted way to cope with the cold, dark days of winter. Taxes, on the other hand, are not so fun and light-hearted. Mention the word “taxes”
A honey bee can live for 8 years ... but a black garden ant can live even 20 years longer than that! Learn more details, and other interesting trivia, in this blog on "the longevity of things." I recently found The Animal Ageing and Longevity Database, and was fascinated by
The East Coast of the US got quite a snowstorm this past weekend, but did your area get enough snow to brag about? Let's see what the data says... Before we get started, here are a couple pictures of the snow. The first one is from my driveway - we didn't
The East Coast is having lots of snow and ice storms today, and SAS headquarters is officially closed. But I thought it would be a great day to get a few things done! And among those few things is "write a snow-related blog". Hope you enjoy it! After 21 years of
“What keeps you awake at night?” my colleague asked me. At the time, I was a child protective services administrator responsible for thousands of at risk children on any given day. While there were many things that weighed on my mind, worker turnover created many sleepless nights, and days filled
The role of insurance is to bring some predictability, manageability and stability in what is in essence, a chaotic and uncertain world. So as we head into 2016, what are the big issues for insurers in the next 12 months? Below is just a selection of some of these issues:
Are you from Yankeedom, The Far West, or somewhere in between? In this blog, I use SAS maps to explore some fun data about regional cultures in the U.S. I recently ran across an interesting article about Colin Woodward's book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures
A successful energy savings program is a good thing for utilities, right? The truth is, that success can result in unintended consequences. One of our utility customers shared this example with me recently: "Let’s say we offer a free LED light bulb to every customer, and everyone removes an old bulb that used 75
A number of years ago I was driving home to Alabama for the holidays. Typical of the season the driving was not easy. It was getting dark early and the traffic was fairly heavy. I had the radio on to pass the time. A talk show was on and the
What if a reckless driver adopted a more responsible approach because the car insurance pricing was based on driving habits? What if the senior from next door had the insurance payments based on kilometres driven, resulting in significant savings? This may be reality sooner than you think. The Internet of Things will revolutionise
When SAS Scotland gave students 48 hours to build a prototype computer system to help increase police effectiveness, nine teams accepted the challenge. The venue was the University of Glasgow's Hackathon, one of the largest student hackathons in the UK, attracting 200 attendees. SAS Scotland has co-sponsored the event for the past three
What strategy do you use to pick your lottery numbers? Do you suspect that the future winning numbers might be somehow related to the past winning numbers? If so, this blog's for you! The Powerball lottery jackpot is up to about $1.4 billion - the largest lottery jackpot there has
I was reading through Deloitte University Press' 2015 Holiday Spending survey - the results were interesting, but their graph made you jump through mental hoops to understand the data. So of course I used SAS to create a simpler version of the graph, so you'll have more time for holiday shopping!
Der letzte Tag vor Heiligabend! Die Farbe an ein paar wenigen Geschenken trocknet noch, die letzten Geschenke werden verpackt und die letzten Schleifen gebunden. Ein letztes Mal setzt sich das Christkind mit seinen Auslieferungs-Engeln zusammen. Wird das Wetter mitspielen? Unsere bisherigen Themen: Business Analytics allgemein (1), Vergangenes analysieren – Künftiges
PharmaVOICE recently published an article: Analytics Driven Marketing for the pharmaceutical industry and I was fortunate enough to be interviewed. The article discusses the increased use of advanced analytics to make better marketing decisions, the progress that has been made and the challenges that still need to be overcome. Within
PharmaVOICE recently published an article: Analytics Driven Marketing for the pharmaceutical industry and I was fortunate enough to be interviewed. The article discusses the increased use of advanced analytics to make better marketing decisions, the progress that has been made and the challenges that still need to be overcome. Within
Earlier this month I attended my first Forbes Healthcare Summit, where the stated goal for this year was to “figure out how to create the kind of care we know we deserve.” The event offered a unique gathering of pharmaceutical, health care and biotechnology chief executives engaged in frank discussions
Earlier this month I attended my first Forbes Healthcare Summit, where the stated goal for this year was to “figure out how to create the kind of care we know we deserve.” The event offered a unique gathering of pharmaceutical, health care and biotechnology chief executives engaged in frank discussions
We have all heard many times about how much the US spends on health care each year. But let’s hear it again . . . because it is staggering: According to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), in 2013, the national health expenditure (NHE) grew to $2.9 trillion. That
We have all heard many times about how much the US spends on health care each year. But let’s hear it again . . . because it is staggering: According to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), in 2013, the national health expenditure (NHE) grew to $2.9 trillion. That
If you're just a casual Star Wars fan, you might be confused about the order of the movies. Here's a SAS graph that will help you make sense of it all, before Episode VII comes out this week! If you'd like to see how I created this custom graph, here's a
There’s more than one way to make a poor decision. Bad data, inappropriate assumptions and flawed logic are just three of the missteps you can take on your climb up the Ladder of Inference, a concept first developed by Chris Argyris, professor of business at Harvard, in 1974, and later popularized
Imagine trying to make the right decision for a child in protective custody if your information was limited only to what was reported to your department about a single incident. Without additional information about the child’s home environment, health and education, criminal background of adults in the child’s life, and
Wer es von Ihnen, liebe Leser, bis hierhin geschafft hat, herzlichen Glückwunsch! Und auch vielen Dank an die Engel, denn die rackern sich gerade ganz schön ab. Während wir uns innerlich auf den 24. Dezember vorbereiten und gemütlicher werden, drehen die Engel nochmals richtig auf. Heute überführt ein Algorithmus ein
Saturday Night Live has been on television for about as long as most of us have been old enough to stay up and watch it (since 1975). Therefore, when I saw that Rolling Stone had ranked all the cast members throughout the show's history, I knew this was going to
Data science is hot. You've undoubtedly heard a lot about the field and the role of the data scientist, now it's time to learn more. So, here are the top three reasons to become a data scientist. 1 – For the enjoyment of creating and building new “things” No, data scientists do not
Here in the US, California is known as "wine country" - but I was wondering what other states make wine, and whether there have been any big changes in recent years. This seemed like a good excuse for some graphical analytics... My previous blog analyzed where various Thanksgiving foods were produced. I was
What is information? The lack of a working definition plagued both science and the emerging telecommunications industry until the arrival of Claude Shannon and his famous 1948 paper, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”, based on his cryptography work during WWII while at Bell Labs. The landmark article is considered the
Como CEO usted está lleno de preocupaciones y ocupaciones, sin embargo una de las situaciones que a todas las empresas les quita el sueño es la gestión adecuada en su cadena de suministro. ¿Y es que acaso sí llevamos eficientemente la planificación, organización y control de cada una de las
