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Blogs

Analytics

Find out how analytics, from data mining to cognitive computing, is changing the way we do business

Analytics

Bill ColemanDecember 5, 2011 0

What can asset management do for utilities?

Water and wastewater treatment plants are among the most complex facilities built and maintained by utility companies, whether public or private. Each facility contains thousands of pieces of equipment worth millions of dollars that must operate in concert for the many complex treatment processes to function effectively. The consequences of these assets

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Analytics

Melissa SavageNovember 17, 2011 0

Intelligent roads will reduce traffic, save money

When I moved last year from Denver to the Washington, DC area people told me to prepare myself for the long hours I would spend in my car. I had no idea. It takes forever to get anywhere. Once, during a snowstorm it took me 9 hours to drive 10

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Analytics | Learn SAS

November 8, 2011 0

What we learned from this year’s conferences

JSM, Miami Beach, FL, July 31–August 3 Miami Beach in August is hot. Ridiculously hot. Almost as hot as our preview copies at this show. Conference goers were extremely excited about a number of our upcoming statistics titles, including Customer Segmentation and Clustering Using SAS® Enterprise Miner™, Second Edition, by

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Analytics

Vincent TalucciNovember 4, 2011 0

Tower running

On September 10, 2001, I was attending a law enforcement conference in Atlantic City, NJ. While I have attended hundreds of similar meetings, this conference stands out for several reasons. First, and most obvious, it was the eve of the day where most of our lives were indelibly altered. Second,

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Analytics

Trent SmithOctober 25, 2011 0

Contagion: Wash hands after reading

For the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of serving on the communications team of the National Collaborative for Bio-Preparedness (NCB-P), of which SAS is a partner and the analytics provider. That experience was heavy on my mind as I recently watched the film Contagion. I may drop some minor

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Government | Health Care

Analytics

Robert PowellSeptember 27, 2011 0

Thoughts on software procurement from a former state controller

Private sector vendors/suppliers seeking to conduct business with government often find frustration with the maze of policy and legislative hurdles encountered during the procurement process. As difficult as the experience may have been from the private sector perspective, take a moment to look at the other side of the procurement

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Analytics

Bill ColemanSeptember 23, 2011 0

BI software may be most painful local government purchase

Over my 32 year career in local government as a city and county manager I was faced with many difficult decisions during budget deliberations. Setting tax and utility rates, adding head count, determining compensation and benefits, calculating the appropriate mix of debt and cash for funding capital projects…these were all

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Analytics

Melissa SavageSeptember 20, 2011 0

Crumbling U.S. infrastructure not just about roads, but economic survival

In 2009, SAFETEA-LU—the legislation that outlines federal transportation funding for the states—expired. Since then, members of Congress have been kicking the can down the road, passing funding extensions instead of passing legislation. The major impact of this failure to act is that the U.S. continues to slip further and further

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Analytics

Bill ColemanSeptember 12, 2011 0

New local government charge: Do Less with Less

The downturn in the economy beginning in 2008 and continuing even to now has put tremendous pressure on local governments to do “less with less”. In the past when economic downturns caused service level cut backs the cry was to do “more with less”. The idea was to identify ways

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Analytics

Vincent TalucciSeptember 7, 2011 0

In law enforcement, it's all about context

‘Context’ defined (as cited from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary): 1: the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning; and, 2: the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs: environment, setting. While context is clearly important, today it is consistently

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Analytics

Chuck EllstromSeptember 1, 2011 0

Irene recovery is opportunity for economic growth

Hurricane Irene impacted 20% of the US population and will cost billions in recovery dollars. Now that the water has begun to subside, the real long term work begins. And it is this work that can be another disaster, or, a real economic benefit to a state. How so? FEMA

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Analytics

Gary FuquayAugust 31, 2011 0

HHS agencies embracing holistic views of citizens

I recently attended the Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) Conference in Austin, Texas. The MMIS conference is an annual event for federal and state HHS agencies to share programmatic and technology initiatives in Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP). While I have attended numerous MMIS conferences in the past, I

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Analytics

Robert PowellAugust 24, 2011 0

Back to basics of state budgets

The recent budget debate between President Obama and Congress reminded me of many of the discussions I observed during my years as State Controller and Deputy State Budget Officer in North Carolina. These discussions are related specifically to principles adhered to in budget development and budget deliberations by elected officials.

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Analytics

Melissa SavageAugust 23, 2011 0

Happy birthday, US Interstates. Now what?

The highway system traversing the United States quietly hit a milestone last month with the 55th anniversary of the Federal Aid Highway Act. In 1956 President Eisenhower had a vision for our nation’s infrastructure; he knew that building an interstate highway system was vital, and expressed that “Together, the united

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Analytics

Vincent TalucciJune 8, 2011 0

The police police

Policing has profoundly changed over the last several decades and its evolution will continue as long as there are crimes to commit and communities to serve. The very nature of policing is dynamic – it always has been and always will be. Those dynamics are driven by many things –

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Analytics

Paula Henderson

Paula HendersonApril 20, 2011 0

Practicalities of Analytics

This is a guest post from Jodi Blomberg, a Principal Technical Architect at SAS. She has over 12 years of experience in data mining and mathematical modeling, and has developed analytic models for many government agencies including child support enforcement, insurance fraud, intelligence led policing, supply chain logistics and adverse

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Analytics

Chuck EllstromApril 15, 2011 0

The Two E's

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the budget problems running rampant across all levels of government. Federal, State and Local Governments are all facing historic budget shortfalls due to the economic crisis and decreased tax receipts. This has led to a much closer examination of services

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Analytics

April 11, 2011 0

Getting to the point of return on analytics

Linking business analytics to economic value is a hard problem. Despite all the smarts that get poured into models, it's hard to tie them to financial measures such as profitability. And, because of that, it's hard to justify investment in analytics. Need headcount? Sorry, try again. Need tools? Sorry, can't

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Analytics | Fraud & Security Intelligence

Greg HendersonApril 5, 2011 0

Feds Stepping Up to Combat Healthcare Fraud

The federal government is more aggressively pursuing health care fraud, and helping the states do the same, by proposing funding changes and investing in new technologies. A newly proposed rule would allow 90% Federal Financial Participation (FFP) for data mining initiatives in state Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCU’s). Another proposed

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Analytics

Robert LathamJanuary 26, 2011 0

The role of analytics in bio-preparedness

I have recently had the great opportunity to be a part of a very special project called the North Carolina Bio-Preparedness Collaborative (NCB-Prepared) It is a public-private partnership that includes the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), North Carolina State University, and SAS, with support from the US

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Analytics

Chuck EllstromDecember 23, 2010 0

The best outcomes? Depends on who you are

Many years ago I served as the program manager for the NC Alternative Fuel Vehicles program. The goal of the program was to promote the usage of various vehicle types that were alternatives to gasoline powered vehicles. One of the main programs in this set of grants was the Clean

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Analytics

Tim FinneganDecember 10, 2010 0

The [insert sponsor name] Pointless Bowl

Imagine you are attending the BCS National Championship game next month. You have invested top dollar in your seats and you have been anticipating the game for weeks. You settle in to your seat with your hot dog, soft pretzel, and your favorite beverage a few minutes before kick-off because

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Analytics

Robert LathamDecember 2, 2010 0

Build vs. Buy

It seems like each week brings news announcing yet another software vendor acquisition by one of the giant software conglomerates. This approach of purchasing a specific capability to fit into the ever growing portfolio of technology does not show signs of stopping in the near future. Matter of fact, several

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Analytics

Michael ProtzNovember 20, 2010 0

Fusion centers & the mail bomb plot

The recent mail bomb attempt on US-bound cargo and commercial airliners is another reminder of the terrorist threat the United States continues to face. While there may be a lull in the news cycles from time to time, the threat is there every day. A key component in detecting and

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Analytics

Vincent TalucciNovember 4, 2010 0

Who says you can't go home?

I recently returned from the 117th Annual Conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) held in Orlando, Florida. It was a tad surreal to be back with the association members and colleagues with whom I worked so closely for almost eight years when I called IACP my

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Analytics | Students & Educators

Lindia HarbaughNovember 4, 2010 0

Common Core Standards key to consistent student assessment

I recently had the opportunity to attend the VA Governor’s Education Summit “Innovate to Educate” was the theme throughout the summit. Speakers and panelists discussed both the challenges we face in today’s schools across America as well as innovative ideas and best practices being implemented in an effort to raise

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Analytics

Brian WhittingtonOctober 12, 2010 0

The role of a government vendor in a recession

It is inspiring for me to see the determination of government employees working to provide us the level of service we have all grown accustomed to even in the midst of "The Great Recession". I don’t need to tell you that the need for government services goes up dramatically during

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Analytics

Chuck EllstromSeptember 27, 2010 0

All Government is Local

We have all heard the old axiom that all politics are local. Recently, I have been in discussions about international responses to major disasters, Specifically, the floods in Pakistan, Haitian earthquake and Indonesia tsunami of 2004. In each of those cases, there were massive international responses to the crisis. Numerous

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Analytics

Rick WicklinSeptember 3, 2010 0

Hello, World!

When programmers begin learning a new computer language, the first program they write is often one that prints the text “Hello, World!” Successfully writing a Hello World program assures the programmer that the software is successfully installed and that all necessary features are working: parsers, compilers, linkers, and so on.

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Analytics

Vincent TalucciAugust 18, 2010 0

Preventive Policing: Honoring the Past by Predicting the Future

In 1829, Sir Robert Peel laid the foundation for the modern day professional police force. In shaping the conceptual framework for policing, Peel put forth: “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.” While Peel described a proactive ideal, many police agencies are struggling

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