Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeMay 13, 2018 0

A Combined WaterFall and Swimmer Plot

The PharmaSUG 2018 conference was held two weeks ago, with great enthusiasm and a record attendance.  The highlight for me was the large spread on visual presentation of data, from papers to poster presentations.  I will provide a more detailed report on all the exciting graphical presentations. One topic of

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Health Care | Life Sciences

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 9, 2018 0

Independent streams of random numbers in SAS

In a previous blog post, I discussed ways to produce statistically independent samples from a random number generator (RNG). The best way is to generate all samples from one stream. However, if your program uses two or more SAS DATA steps to simulate the data, you cannot use the same

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerMay 7, 2018 0

Which random number generator did Thanos use?

WARNING: This blog post references Avengers: Infinity War and contains story spoilers. But it also contains useful information about random number generators (RNGs) -- tempting! If you haven't yet seen the movie, you should make peace with this inner conflict before reading on. Throughout the movie, Thanos makes it clear

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Advanced Analytics | Data Management | Programming Tips

Leonid BatkhanMay 7, 2018 0

SAS tools for GDPR privacy compliant reporting

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) taking effect on 25 May 2018 pertains not only to organizations located within the EU; it applies to all companies processing and holding the personal data of data subjects residing in the European Union, regardless of the company’s location. Here are four selected SAS tools for GDPR that allow you to protect personal data in SAS reports by suppressing counts in small demographic group reports.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Jim SimonMay 7, 2018 0

"Wide" versus "Tall" data: PROC TRANSPOSE v. the DATA step

Datasets can present themselves in different ways. Identical data can bet arranged differently, often as wide or tall datasets. Generally, the tall dataset is better. Learn how to convert wide data into tall data with PROC TRANSPOSE.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Jim SimonMay 7, 2018 0

Deleting global macro variables

Do you periodically delete unneeded global macro variables? You should! Deleting macro variables releases memory and keeps your symbol table clean. Learn how the macro language statement that deletes global macro variables and about the %DELETEALL statement that can be a life saver for macro programmers.

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 7, 2018 0

Independence and overlap in streams of random numbers

Simulation studies require both randomness and reproducibility, two qualities that are sometimes at odds with each other. A Monte Carlo simulation might need to generate millions of random samples, where each sample contains dozens of continuous variables and many thousands of observations. In simulation studies, the researcher wants each sample

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonMay 4, 2018 0

Lowest unemployment since 1976?

It looks like we've finally recovered from the Great Recession, and there are even claims of record-low unemployment in several U.S. states. Of course claims like that make my data-radar go off, and I wanted to see the numbers for myself. And it's a great excuse for me to create

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Government

Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonMay 2, 2018 0

Proof that Southerners lie about their age!

Have you ever lied about your age? When you were younger, perhaps you exaggerated your age to watch an R-rated movie, buy cigarettes, get into a night club, or drink alcohol? And when people reach their 30s or 40s, they might subtract a few years when people ask their age.

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Health Care | Life Sciences

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerApril 30, 2018 0

A productive future for SAS Enterprise Guide

The title of this blog says what you really need to know: SAS Enterprise Guide does have a future, and it's a bright one. Ever since SAS Studio debuted in 2014, onlookers have speculated about its impact on the development of SAS Enterprise Guide. I think that we have been

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonApril 30, 2018 0

Keeping track of the oldest people in the world

How old was the oldest person in your family, or the oldest person you personally know? And how do they compare to the oldest people in the world? ... Perhaps you can easily make the comparison, with this cool graph! But before we get started, here's a picture of my

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Health Care | Life Sciences

Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonApril 25, 2018 0

How many planets in our solar system? (... tricky question!)

How many planets are there in our solar system? The answer hasn't always been 9 ... er, I mean 8 (sorry Pluto!). The count has changed throughout history as we got a better understanding of astronomy, discovered new planets, and redefined what a 'planet' is. Wouldn't it be helpful to

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 25, 2018 0

An easier way to run thousands of regressions

SAS programmers on SAS discussion forums sometimes ask how to run thousands of regressions of the form Y = B0 + B1*X_i, where i=1,2,.... A similar question asks how to solve thousands of regressions of the form Y_i = B0 + B1*X for thousands of response variables. I have previously

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeApril 24, 2018 0

3D WaterFall Chart - Redux

A while back a user requested to create a 3D WaterFall chart as presented by E Castanon Alvarez et. al. in "3D waterfall plots: a better graphical representation of tumor response in oncology" Annals of Oncology, Volume 28, Issue 3, 1 March 2017, Pages 454–456.  I posted a blog article titled

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Health Care | Life Sciences

Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Jane EslingerApril 24, 2018 0

Background images and the ODS destination for PowerPoint

The ODS destination for PowerPoint uses table templates and style templates to display the tables, graphs, and other output produced by SAS procedures. You can customize the look of your presentation in a number of ways, including using custom style templates and images. Here we'll learn about using background images.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Allison SaitoApril 23, 2018 0

When a variable is not a variable

SAS variables are variables in the statistics sense, not the computer programming sense. SAS has what many computer languages call “variables,” it just calls them “macro variables.” Knowing the difference between SAS variables and SAS macro variables will help you write more flexible and effective code.

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Data for Good | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonApril 23, 2018 0

Can you guess which 10 rivers produce 95% of the ocean's plastic pollution?

Plastic pollution in the oceans is becoming a huge problem. And, as with any problem, finding the solution starts with identifying the source of the problem. A recent study estimated that 95% of the plastic pollution in our oceans comes from 10 rivers - let's put some visual analytics to

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Russ TyndallApril 20, 2018 0

How to expand the number of available SAS functions within the macro language

The %SYSFUNC macro function allows you to access most SAS® functions. In this blog post, I demonstrate how %SYSFUNC can help in your programming needs when a macro function might not exist. I'll also share the formatting feature that is built in to %SYSFUNC and introduce the %QSYSFUNC that masks the returned value.

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonApril 19, 2018 0

A periodic table to help you with your SAS ODS graphics!

There were 97 e-posters in The Quad demo room at SAS Global Forum this year. And the one that caught my eye was Ted Conway's "Periodic Table of Introductory SAS ODS Graphics Examples." Here's a picture of Ted fielding some questions from an interested user... He created a nice/fun graphic,

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Programming Tips

Steven SoberApril 18, 2018 0

How to Emulate DESCENDING BY Variables in DATA Step Code that Runs Distributed in SAS® Viya™

DESCENDING BY Variables in DATA Step Code that Runs Distributed in SAS Viya

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 18, 2018 0

The sweep operator: A fundamental operation in regression

The sweep operator performs elementary row operations on a system of linear equations. The sweep operator enables you to build regression models by "sweeping in" or "sweeping out" particular rows of the X`X matrix. As you do so, the estimates for the regression coefficients, the error sum of squares, and

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 16, 2018 0

Random permutations without duplicates

A colleague and I recently discussed how to generate random permutations without encountering duplicates. Given a set of n items, there are n! permutations My colleague wants to generate k unique permutations at random from among the total of n!. Said differently, he wants to sample without replacement from the

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 11, 2018 0

Find the unique rows of a numeric matrix

Sometimes it is important to ensure that a matrix has unique rows. When the data are all numeric, there is an easy way to detect (and delete!) duplicate rows in a matrix. The main idea is to subtract one row from another. Start with the first row and subtract it

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

SAS JediApril 9, 2018 0

Jedi @ SASGF: Working with Big Data in SAS

The SAS Jedi Mark Jordan presents his SAS Global Forum 2018 paper "Working with Big Data in SAS"

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonApril 6, 2018 0

Did attempted border crossings really 'surge' in March?

During the past few days, several news outlets told us that the number of illegal border crossings 'surged' in March 2018. This is a topic that interests me, therefore I wanted to see if the data supported what the news was claiming... Trump's desire to secure the US borders is

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Government

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerApril 4, 2018 0

SAS functions to encode and decode data for the Web

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is famous for inventing the World Wide Web and for the construction of URLs -- a piece of syntax that every 8-year-old is now familiar with. According to the lore, when Sir Tim invented URLs he did not imagine that Internet surfers of all ages and backgrounds

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

SAS JediApril 4, 2018 0

Jedi SAS Tricks: Transwarp Processing with DS2 in SAS® Viya®

When speed is required at scale, it's hard to beat parallel processing data in memory with DS2 and SAS® Viya® with the amazing Cloud Analytic Services (CAS)!

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 4, 2018 0

Distance correlation

Correlation is a statistic that measures how closely two variables are related to each other. The most popular definition of correlation is the Pearson product-moment correlation, which is a measurement of the linear relationship between two variables. Many textbooks stress the linear nature of the Pearson correlation and emphasize that

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonApril 2, 2018 0

Tracking the reentry of China's space station

If you grew up as a space-junkie kid like me, then you've probably been watching the news for the past few days, wondering when and where China's Tiangong 1 space station was going to fall out of orbit, and crash to Earth. According to Popular Mechanics (PM), that happened at 8:16pm

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Government

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 2, 2018 0

The chi-square test: An example of working with rows and columns in SAS

As a general rule, when SAS programmers want to manipulate data row by row, they reach for the SAS DATA step. When the computation requires column statistics, the SQL procedure is also useful. When both row and column operations are required, the SAS/IML language is a powerful addition to a

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