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Rick WicklinSeptember 11, 2019 0

Axis tables versus rotated text: How to display a wide table in a small graph

I often use axis tables in PROC SGPLOT in SAS to add a table of text to a graph so that the table values are aligned with the data. But axis tables are not the only way to display tabular data in a graph. You can also use the TEXT

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Learn SAS | SAS Events

Jenna CodySeptember 10, 2019 0

11 Reasons to Apply for the New SAS Professional Award

I recently had the incredible opportunity to attend SAS Global Forum in Dallas as a presenter and New SAS Professional Award recipient. At the conference, I was able to learn more about SAS features and applications, share my knowledge of SAS applications in the clinical trials space, and make new

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics | Learn SAS | Machine Learning | Programming Tips

Nelson GrajalesSeptember 9, 2019 0

Machine learning with SASPy: Exploring and preparing your data (part 1)

SASPy is a powerful Python library that interfaces with SAS and can help with your machine-learning solutions. SASPy was created for Python programmers to leverage the power of SAS within their Python scripts. If you are not familiar with SASPy, see the following resources: Introducing SASPy: Use Python code to

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS

Rick WicklinSeptember 9, 2019 0

Anchor points and rotated text in PROC SGPLOT

The TEXT statement in PROC SGPLOT supports the ROTATE= option to rotate the specified text. It is worth knowing how the ROTATE= option interacts with the POSITION= option, which determines the anchor point at which the text is positioned. Briefly, the text is positioned FIRST, then the rotation occurs. The

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Learn SAS

Missy HannahSeptember 8, 2019 0

Celebrating #InternationalLiteracyDay with Free SAS E-books!

Today, September 8th, is International Literacy Day! A day celebrated by UNESCO since 1967 to emphasize the importance of literacy around the world. Here at SAS, we have decided to highlight data literacy, a critical part of our evolving knowledge as data and analytics continue to dominate the way we

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Beverly BrownSeptember 4, 2019 0

YouTube.com/SASusers: a pop of personality

Editor's Note: SAS' Evan Mann contributed to this post. First came SAS' reputation as a great place to work. Next came a storytellers article series offering a glimpse of the people behind the brand. Now there's the SAS Users YouTube Channel, where tutorial videos provide a window into some of

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Data Management | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Kumar ThangamuthuAugust 27, 2019 0

Data and Analytics Innovation using SAS & Spark - part 1

This article is not a tutorial on Hadoop, Spark, or big data. At the same time, no prerequisite knowledge of these technologies is required for understanding. We’ll give you enough background prior to diving into the details. In simplest terms, the Hadoop framework maintains the data and Spark controls and

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinAugust 19, 2019 0

Timing performance in SAS/IML: Built-in functions versus Base SAS functions

One of my friends likes to remind me that "there is no such thing as a free lunch," which he abbreviates by "TINSTAAFL" (or TANSTAAFL). The TINSTAAFL principle applies to computer programming because you often end up paying a cost (in performance) when you call a convenience function that simplifies

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinAugust 14, 2019 0

Short-circuit evaluation and logical ligatures in SAS

Many programmers are familiar with "short-circuit" evaluation in an IF-THEN statement. Short circuit means that a program does not evaluate the remainder of a logical expression if the value of the expression is already logically determined. The SAS DATA step supports short-circuiting for simple logical expressions in IF-THEN statements and

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS

Scott HicksAugust 9, 2019 0

Esri integration with SAS Visual Analytics: Geocoding

Geocoding is no longer limited to just Base SAS. You can also geocode from within Visual Analytics, thanks to the integration with the Esri geocoding api. This feature is part of the Esri Premium agreement, and became available in VA 8.3.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinAugust 7, 2019 0

The essential guide to binning in SAS

Do you want to bin a numeric variable into a small number of discrete groups? This article compiles a dozen resources and examples related to binning a continuous variable. The examples show both equal-width binning and quantile binning. In addition to standard one-dimensional techniques, this article also discusses various techniques

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Sian RobertsAugust 5, 2019 0

What really matters: SAS #data4good and the SAS Press team

As a company, SAS consistently supports #data4good initiatives designed to help those less fortunate around the world. SAS Press team members recently took some time to reflect on the SAS initiatives that inspired them. We thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce some of the team who work

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Rick WicklinAugust 5, 2019 0

How to use PROC HPBIN to bin numerical variables

Binning transforms a continuous numerical variable into a discrete variable with a small number of values. When you bin univariate data, you define cut point that define discrete groups. I've previously shown how to use PROC FORMAT in SAS to bin numerical variables and give each group a meaningful name

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Lisa MendezAugust 2, 2019 0

SAS Global Forum Call for Content is Open

Submit your ideas for SAS Global Forum 2020, and share your knowledge with SAS users worldwide.

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Rick WicklinJuly 31, 2019 0

Use numeric values for column headers when printing a matrix

Sometimes a little thing can make a big difference. I am enjoying a new enhancement of SAS/IML 15.1, which enables you to use a numeric vector as the column header or row header when you print a SAS/IML matrix. Prior to SAS/IML 15.1, you had to use the CHAR or

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Rick WicklinJuly 29, 2019 0

Vectorize the computation of the Mandelbrot set in a matrix language

When my colleague, Robert Allison, blogged about visualizing the Mandelbrot set, I was reminded of a story from the 1980s, which was the height of the fractal craze. A research group in computational mathematics had been awarded a multimillion-dollar grant to purchase a supercomputer. When the supercomputer arrived and got

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Rick WicklinJuly 24, 2019 0

Implement the Gumbel distribution in SAS

SAS supports more than 25 common probability distributions for the PDF, CDF, QUANTILE, and RAND functions. Of course, there are infinitely many distributions, so not every possible distribution is supported. If you need a less-common distribution, I've shown how to extend the functionality of Base SAS (by using PROC FCMP)

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Kathryn McLawhornJuly 19, 2019 0

How the RANK procedure calculates ranks with groups and ties

The RANK procedure (PROC RANK) is useful for ranking numeric variables in a data set across observations. You often see PROC RANK used to rank data into quartiles, deciles, or percentiles. This action requires that you use the GROUPS= option in the PROC RANK statement. This blog answers three questions

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Leonid BatkhanJuly 17, 2019 0

Passing comma-delimited values into SAS macros and macro functions

Have you ever tried to pass comma-delimited values to SAS macro or to a SAS macro function? How can SAS distinguish commas separating parameters or arguments from commas separating parts of the values? Passing comma-delimited value as an argument to a SAS macro function Let’s say you want to extract

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Advanced Analytics | Learn SAS

Missy HannahJuly 15, 2019 0

Curious about SAS® Viya®? Discover two new free SAS Press e-books!

With all the excitement around SAS’ new software architecture, SAS Viya, we often get asked the question: What is it and how can it help my company conquer our analytics challenges? Fortunately, learning more about SAS Viya has never been easier. SAS Viya extends the SAS® Platform and provides reliable,

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJuly 15, 2019 0

Create a discrete heat map with PROC SGPLOT

Heat maps have many uses. You can use a heat map to visualize correlation matrices, to visualize longitudinal data ("lasagna plots"), and to visualize counts in any two-dimensional table. As of SAS 9.4m3, you can create heat maps in SAS by using the HEATMAP and HEATMAPPARM statements in PROC SGPLOT.

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Derek MorganJuly 10, 2019 0

SAS Press Author Derek Morgan on Timetables and Model Trains

I was sitting in a model railroad club meeting when one of our more enthusiastic young members said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could make a computer simulation, with trains going between stations and all. We could have cars and engines assigned to each train and timetables and…" So,

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Rick WicklinJuly 3, 2019 0

Create a custom informat in SAS

An informat helps you read data into a SAS data set. SAS supports more than 100 informats. The most common informats are related to dates and times and make it easy to read an input string such as 28JAN2001 and convert it to a SAS date such as 15003. Yet

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Missy HannahJuly 2, 2019 0

Summer reading – Book recommendations from SAS Press authors

One of my favorite parts of summer is a relaxing weekend by the pool. Summer is the time I get to finally catch up on my reading list, which has been building over the year. So, if expanding your knowledge is a goal of yours this summer, SAS Press has

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Leonid BatkhanJune 26, 2019 0

Finding n-th instance of a substring within a string

"There's a way to do it better - find it." - Thomas A. Edison When it comes to SAS coding, this quote by Thomas A. Edison is my best advisor. Time permitting, I love finding better ways of implementing SAS code. But what code feature means “better” – brevity, clarity

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Analytics | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJune 26, 2019 0

Jump-start PROC LOGISTIC by using parameter estimates from PROC HPLOGISTIC

SAS/STAT software contains a number of so-called HP procedures for training and evaluating predictive models. ("HP" stands for "high performance.") A popular HP procedure is HPLOGISTIC, which enables you to fit logistic models on Big Data. A goal of the HP procedures is to fit models quickly. Inferential statistics such

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Learn SAS

Rick WicklinJune 24, 2019 0

Add loess smoothers to residual plots

When fitting a least squares regression model to data, it is often useful to create diagnostic plots of the residuals versus the explanatory variables. If the model fits the data well, the plots of the residuals should not display any patterns. Systematic patterns can indicate that you need to include

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Anna BrownJune 20, 2019 0

A playful way to get your hands on SAS: the Data Science Escape Rooms

Move over video games and sports. Make room for escape rooms. This burgeoning form of entertainment found its roots in the video gaming movement. Escape rooms tap into a player's drive to reach the next level, solve a puzzle and win. Escape rooms present a physical game that traps you

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Learn SAS

Rick WicklinJune 19, 2019 0

Influential observations in a linear regression model: The DFFITS and Cook's D statistics

A previous article describes the DFBETAS statistics for detecting influential observations, where "influential" means that if you delete the observation and refit the model, the estimates for the regression coefficients change substantially. Of course, there are other statistics that you could use to measure influence. Two popular ones are the

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Learn SAS

Rick WicklinJune 17, 2019 0

Influential observations in a linear regression model: The DFBETAS statistics

My article about deletion diagnostics investigated how influential an observation is to a least squares regression model. In other words, if you delete the i_th observation and refit the model, what happens to the statistics for the model? SAS regression procedures provide many tables and graphs that enable you to

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