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Blogs

Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 17, 2018 0

DNA and your family tree ... 6-10 generations back

Any of you who are even slightly into politics, or have followed any news lately, have probably seen something about the DNA test Elizabeth Warren took to prove/disprove her Native American ancestry. The test indicates she might have had a Native American ancestor 6 to 10 generations ago. That's a

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Programming Tips

Sian RobertsOctober 15, 2018 0

New to SAS? Ready to learn more? Check out these tips and tricks from the authors of Exercises and Projects for The Little SAS Book, 5th Edition

These famous SAS Press authors share some tips and tricks for new SAS users.

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 11, 2018 0

Timeline of US Supreme Court Justices

Here in the US, we recently had a new Supreme Court Justice appointed. This is a very important position, and judges usually serve until they retire or die. My buddy Rick gave me a heads-up that there was a table of all the past & present justices on Wikipedia, and

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldOctober 10, 2018 0

Can values on an axis first decrease and then increase?

By using a format, you can change the tick values and create values that range from 100 to 50 to 100 to display the probable outcome of a sporting event.

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Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Programming Tips | Risk Management

Sian RobertsOctober 9, 2018 0

Deep learning for numerical analysis explained

Deep learning (DL) is a subset of neural networks, which have been around since the 1960’s. Computing resources and the need for a lot of data during training were the crippling factor for neural networks. But with the growing availability of computing resources such as multi-core machines, graphics processing units

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Banking | Insurance

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerOctober 9, 2018 0

How to read multiple text files in SAS

The SAS INFILE statement can read multiple text files in a single DATA step. Use file name wildcards (like * and ?) and a special FILENAME= option to keep track of which records come from which files.

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 8, 2018 0

Mapping the clans of Scotland

I attended the Scottish Highland Games this past weekend ... nearby in Scotland County, North Carolina! They put on a great event, with kilt-wearing Scotsmen throwing things, bands playing bagpipes, kids dancing, and clans sharing their family history. And to get into the mood for this event, I decided to

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Sports & Entertainment | Travel

Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldOctober 8, 2018 0

Getting started with SGPLOT - Part 13 - Style Attributes

The STYLEATTRS statement in PROC SGPLOT enables you to override colors, markers, line patterns, fill patterns, and axis break patterns in ODS styles, without requiring you to change the ODS style template.

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinOctober 8, 2018 0

The intersection of multiple sets

This article compares several ways to find the elements that are common to multiple sets. I test which method is the fastest in the SAS/IML language. However, all algorithms are intrinsically fast, which raises an important question: when is it worth the time and effort to optimize an algorithm? The

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldOctober 4, 2018 0

Image backgrounds revisited

You can use SG annotation to display graphs inside of other graphs.

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinOctober 3, 2018 0

Fast simulation of multivariate normal data with an AR(1) correlation structure

It is sometimes necessary for researchers to simulate data with thousands of variables. It is easy to simulate thousands of uncorrelated variables, but more difficult to simulate thousands of correlated variables. For that, you can generate a correlation matrix that has special properties, such as a Toeplitz matrix or a

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 1, 2018 0

Does the US really produce the most oil now?!?

Over the years, the US has drilled for crude oil in several locations, such as Pennsylvania, Texas, Alaska, and the Gulf of Mexico. A few years ago, as the US started drilling more in North Dakota, there were forecasts that we would surpass Saudi Arabia in crude oil production. And recently,

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Energy & Utilities

Learn SAS | Programming Tips | Students & Educators

Ron CodyOctober 1, 2018 0

Three of My Favorite Programming Tips

I often get asked for programming tips. Here, I share three of my favorite tips for beginners. Tip #1: COUNTC and CATS Functions Together The CATS function concatenates all of its arguments after it strips leading and trailing blanks. The COUNTC function counts characters. Together, they can let you operate

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinOctober 1, 2018 0

Chi-square tests for proportions in one-way tables

Programmers on a SAS discussion forum recently asked about the chi-square test for proportions as implemented in PROC FREQ in SAS. One person asked the basic question, "how do I test the null hypothesis that the observed proportions are equal to a set of known proportions?" Another person said that

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinSeptember 26, 2018 0

Radial basis functions and Gaussian kernels in SAS

A radial basis function is a scalar function that depends on the distance to some point, called the center point, c. One popular radial basis function is the Gaussian kernel φ(x; c) = exp(-||x – c||2 / (2 σ2)), which uses the squared distance from a vector x to the

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonSeptember 24, 2018 0

River flooding in North Carolina from Hurricane Florence

Here in North Carolina, a hurricane recently moved very slowly across our state, causing major flooding, and even closing miles of interstate highways for longer than a week. There is data available online for gauges along the river (or gages, as they call them), but I doubt many people know

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinSeptember 24, 2018 0

How many perfect riffle shuffles are required to restore a deck to its initial order?

Last week I compared the overhand shuffle to the riffle shuffle. I used random operations to simulate both kinds of shuffles and then compared how well they mix cards. The article caused one my colleague and fellow blogger, Rob Pratt, to ask if I was familiar with a bit of

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Jerry LeonardSeptember 21, 2018 0

Adding blank rows in TABULATE procedure results

Do you want to insert blank rows into your TABULATE procedure tables? Here's a SAS sample and two other methods that will get the job done.

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Advanced Analytics | Data for Good | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerSeptember 18, 2018 0

Using machine learning to improve tumor biopsies

How can you use analytics to design better biopsies and improve outcomes? This high school student has some ideas, and she presented them at Analytics Experience 2018.

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonSeptember 18, 2018 0

Hurricane Florence: rainfall totals in the Carolinas

"We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain, and big ol' fat rain, rain that flew in sideways, and sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." Was that a quote from the Forrest Gump movie, or something said regarding Hurricane Florence? Could be either one! Hurricane Florence recently came through

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Government | Travel

Data Management | Learn SAS | Programming Tips | Students & Educators

Sian RobertsSeptember 18, 2018 0

Three Proc SQL Tips from Bestselling Author Kirk Paul Lafler

SAS Press author Kirk Paul Lafler's favorite tips using PROC SQL.

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Data for Good | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerSeptember 17, 2018 0

Essential SAS tools to bring to your next hackathon

To succeed in any data-focused hackathon, you need a robust set of tools and skills – as well as a can-do attitude. Here's what you can expect from any hackathon: Messy data. It might come from a variety of sources, and won't necessarily be organized for analytics or reporting. That's

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinSeptember 17, 2018 0

Linearly spaced vectors in SAS

The SAS/IML language and the MATLAB language are similar. Both provide a natural syntax for performing high-level computations on vectors and matrices, including basic linear algebra subroutines. Sometimes a SAS programmer will convert an algorithm from MATLAB into SAS/IML. Because the languages are not identical, I am sometimes asked, "what

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldSeptember 10, 2018 0

Advanced ODS Graphics: Unicode, tables, and graphs

You can use Unicode to display special characters in SAS output including tables and graphs. With graphs that analytical procedures produce, you might need additional steps.

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonSeptember 10, 2018 0

Hurricane Florence - and other category 4 hurricanes that hit NC

Here in North Carolina (NC), we're pretty much resigned to the fact that many of the hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean are going to visit us. NC sticks out farther into the ocean than most of our neighboring states, and that just makes a tempting target for the hurricanes. But

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Programming Tips

Visualization of L1 distance matrix for items arranged on a 6 x 6 grid

Rick WicklinSeptember 10, 2018 0

Distances on rectangular grids

Given a rectangular grid with unit spacing, what is the expected distance between two random vertices, where distance is measured in the L1 metric? (Here "random" means "uniformly at random.") I recently needed this answer for some small grids, such as the one to the right, which is a 7 x 6

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonSeptember 7, 2018 0

Creating industry-specific infographics (eg, 3d printing)

I usually create very technical graphs, that just focus on conveying the information in a concise and straightforward manner (no wasted colors, and nothing to distract you from the data). But sometimes, depending on your audience and the purpose of the graph, you might need to create a graph that

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Data Management | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Ron CodySeptember 6, 2018 0

New edition of the Cody classic: Learning SAS® by Example

Find out about the new edition of Ron Cody's latest best selling book.

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinSeptember 6, 2018 0

The continued fraction representation of a rational number

Continued fractions show up in surprising places. They are used in the numerical approximations of certain functions, including the evaluation of the normal cumulative distribution function (normal CDF) for large values of x (El-bolkiny, 1995, p. 75-77) and in approximating the Lambert W function, which has applications in the modeling

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonSeptember 5, 2018 0

How much land does the government own in each US state?

Many of the most beautiful areas in the US are owned by the government, to preserve them and allow access for everyone to enjoy them. And most US schools are traditionally closed during the summer, which provides families a great opportunity to go visit state and federal lands (parks, forests,

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