VIEWS News 56 has been published!

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After over 7 years without a new issue of VIEWS News issue 56 has been published today. To be able to read this and all previous issues you will need to follow these steps:

  1. If you have not already registered on this blog site, go to blog.hollandnumerics.org.uk and register for free membership.
  2. Once successfully registered, reply to the registration confirmation email, and ask me to give you free access to the VIEWS UK forum.
  3. On receipt of a request for an existing blog member I will register them for free access to the VIEWS UK forum, and then send them an email to confirm this.
  4. The next time they log onto the blog site they will see VIEWS UK in the forum list, where you will find the latest issue of VIEWS News, forum topics to find the backissues, functions and formats in every published issue, and a tag cloud covering every forum on the site to which you have access, including VIEWS UK and the VIEWS News issues.
  5. They will also be automatically informed of any VIEWS UK updates.

Enjoy!……………..Phil

Advance notice: VIEWS News 56 will be published on June 21

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After over 7 years when VIEWS News has not been published at all, the new VIEWS News 56 will be published on June 21, as I will be presenting at PharmaSUG in Philadelphia before then.

Articles in this issue are by Sanjay Matange (ODS Graphics), LeRoy Bessler (SAS/GRAPH), and Murphy Choy and Michelle L Cheong (JMP and SAS/IML). I’ve also added more interesting/useful formats, options and functions, and future SAS-related events.

If you would like to contribute an article on any SAS topic to the next issue in August 2019 then please send an email with a description/attachment of your contribution to view-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk or phil@hollandnumerics.org.uk.

Note that access to all issues of VIEWS News from issue 1 to the current issue requires a blog registration (https://hollandnumerics.org.uk/membership-join/membership-registration/), AND then requesting access to the VIEWS UK forum by email or via link (https://hollandnumerics.org.uk/request-access-to-the-views-uk-forum/).

Statisticians: Beware of the Datasaurus!!

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Alberto Cairo created the Datasaurus Dozen to demonstrate the necessity to view data beyond its statistics. He created a scatterplot of a dinosaur, and then generated 12 very different scatterplots with almost identical statistics.

Plot of Datasaurus data set

  • N: 142
  • Mean: X=54.27, Y=47.83
  • Standard deviation: X=16.77, Y=26.94
  • Correlation x-y: -0.06

The 12 data sets with almost identical statistics to those above are plotted here, including the x and y means as reference lines:

More information about the Datasaurus Dozen, including how the Dozen were generated and how to download the data, can be found here.

The program to create these graphs, including the data, can be downloaded as a zip file from here.

My SAS-related blog site is being encrypted, so please be patient!

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My SAS-related blog site is being encrypted! However, some links on the blog pages may still open pages that haven’t yet been encrypted until the process has been completed, so please be patient.

If you access the blog site using “blog.hollandnumerics.org.uk”, then you will now be automatically directed to the secure blog site (with the URLs beginning with https://). If you are using a direct link (beginning with http://hollandnumerics.org.uk), then you may have to update that link to use “https://” instead of “http://”.

Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused, but the changes will make this site more secure in the future.

I’ve added a tag cloud for all of the forums used by blog members

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As part of the development of the VIEWS UK forum infrastructure, I’ve added a tag cloud for all of the forums used by logged-in blog members. This means that clicking a word or phrase in the tag cloud will generate a list of forum topics with that tag. I’ve also added a search form at the end of the page, in case you would like to search a specific forum.

Once you have logged into the blog site, this can either be accessed directly at Forum Tag Cloud page, or through the Menu via Forums, Features and Subscriptions > Forum Tag Cloud. If you have not logged in, then you will be directed to the Join Us page, and you won’t be able to see the item in the Menu! This is because the forums on the blog site can only be accessed by logged-in members.

VIEWS News will now resume production: 100 blog members have requested free access to the VIEWS UK forum!

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VIEWS News will now be resuming production, because 100 blog members have requested free access to the VIEWS UK forum!

Issue 56 will now be made available to download from the VIEWS UK forum in May 2019, but, in the meanwhile, I’ll be developing indexes in that forum for the existing 55 back-issues of VIEWS News. New issues will, hopefully, be published in February, May, August and November each year, so, if you have a suitable SAS-related article you’d like to have included, please contact me at views-uk@hollandnumerics.org.uk.

Remember that free access to the VIEWS newsletter is restricted to logged-in blog members who have requested access to the VIEWS UK forum. This is so I have a list of interested members willing to received news about forthcoming VIEWS News issues. Any blog members who don’t wish to learn about new VIEWS News issues should not request free access, but any registered blog members who do want access to the VIEWS UK forum should contact me now, if they are not already on the list. Just log into the blog and look for “VIEWS UK” in the forum list to make certain.

I’m presenting at the Toronto SAS Meetup on 05Mar2019, but I won’t be there!

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I’m presenting at the Toronto SAS Meetup on 27Feb2019 05Mar2019, but I won’t be there, because, technology permitting, I’ll be presenting remotely from my nice warm office in the UK. This is intended to take advantage of remote communications and to avoid the need for me to fly over the Atlantic for a 20-minute talk!

More information, including registration details, can be found at the Toronto SAS Meetup site.

Toronto SAS Meetup
I’ll be presenting “Converting Plots from SAS/GRAPH to ODS Graphics”. Please come to the meeting and ask me questions, as I’ll be happy to discuss any of the points in my presentation with you.

If you enjoy this presentation, then talk to Mamadou Dakouo about inviting me to present again at a future meeting, as this is the first of 4 different presentations about ODS Graphics.

How good are you at calculating in your head? Are you calculator-dependent?

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Improving mental arithmetic (calculating in your head) has been a long-term quest for me. My 3 daughters were subjected to numerical puzzle questions whenever we were on long journeys, and now none of them routinely use calculators, unless absolutely necessary.

I used to develop JavaScript-based apps for the webOS platforms in Palm and HP devices, and created a number of mental arithmetic apps. I’ve recently found the time to re-engineer some of them to work on Android devices, and the following apps can now be found on Google Play and Amazon Appstore:

  • Arithmetic Brain – 8 different levels of 10 randomly generated questions about addition, subtraction and multiplication. Here are the links to Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

Arithmetic Brain

  • Multiply Brain – 19 different levels of 10 randomly generated questions on multiplication from x2 to x20. Here are the links to Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

Multiply Brain

  • Decimal Brain – 8 different levels of 10 randomly generated questions about decimal addition, subtraction and multiplication. Here are the links to Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

Decimal Brain

  • Fraction Brain – 4 different levels of 10 randomly generated questions about fraction addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Here are the links to Google Play and Amazon Appstore.

Fraction Brain

Full details about what is included in each Android app can be found on each app page.

Don Henderson is a guest speaker for an extra SUGUKI meeting in London on February 19

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Don Henderson is a guest speaker for extra SUGUKI meeting in London on February 19.

For more details go to the SUGUKI Meetup page.

Don, a past president of the SAS Global Forum and frequent presenter there, will be talking about his new book about the SAS Hash Object, which he wrote with Paul Dorfman, who invented the Hash Object. Having read this book I was surprised how useful Hash Objects could be. Even the background to why they had to generate the “baseball” data for the book is fascinating.

Stop Press: 2 signed copies of this book will be given away at the meeting!

I’ll look forward to seeing you at the Shard in London………..Phil

Would you like 1/2 day or 1 day SAS training at PharmaSUG China 2020?

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I was considering attending PharmaSUG China at the end of August 2019, but I’ve been told that a seminar held previously in China on SAS programming efficiency had a low attendance, as programmers there are relatively young, so they like to learn techniques on their own, or take classes on topics that they cannot learn from the internet. However, they prefer challenging topics, which are hard to learn on their own.

I have now decided to delay what could be my one and only visit to China until 2020, and use the extra preparation time to find out a little more about what SAS programmers in China would be most interested in.

Therefore, please could you help me by answering this quick poll about the 1/2 day training sessions I currently provide. The answers will guide me to the best package to offer to PharmaSUG China 2020. Links to most of the training courses can be found below the poll.

If you have not yet voted and can view the poll results, but the Vote button is grey, your IP address may already have been used to vote on this poll. This is in fact quite common when viewing blog posts from a company PC, so I would therefore recommend that you try voting using your phone or your home PC instead.

Thank you in advance………..Phil

I'm planning to go to PharmaSUG China in 2020. Which 1/2 day training courses would you be interested in attending there? (max 2)

  • Efficient SAS Programming (28%, 7 Votes)
  • Defensive SAS Programming (24%, 6 Votes)
  • Introduction to ODS Graph Templates (20%, 5 Votes)
  • SAS PROC SQL (12%, 3 Votes)
  • Enterprise Guide and SAS Studio (8%, 2 Votes)
  • Practical ODS Graphics (8%, 2 Votes)

Total Voters: 14

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STOP PRESS! I’m presenting on SAS Studio and ODS Graphics at the London SUGUKI on 10Jan2019. Attend the meeting for a chance to win an ebook in the draw!

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STOP PRESS!

I’m presenting on SAS Studio and ODS Graphics at the London SUGUKI Meetup on 10Jan2019.

Attend the meeting for a chance to win an ebook in the draw! Note that you meet register at http://www.meetup.com/SUGUKI to be allowed into the meetup, where you can find more details about this and other SUGUKI events.

Hope to meet you there…………Phil

Are you going to PharmaSUG 2019 in Philadelphia? My paper is listed on the “Sneak Preview” page!

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Are you going to PharmaSUG 2019 in Philadelphia? My paper, “The Art of Defensive Programming: Coping with Unseen Data”, is listed on the “Sneak Preview” page! This paper forms part of my Defensive SAS Programming course.

The conference runs from 16-19 June 2019, but I’m hoping to arrange my flights across the Atlantic so my wife and I can take in some of our “bucket” list in Boston and Niagara.

Hope to meet up with you in Philadelphia, and maybe even see you at my presentation!