Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 13:52:07 EST
Reply-To: NYASUG Steering Committee <NYASUG@PACEVM.DAC.PACE.EDU>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From: NYASUG Steering Committee <NYASUG@PACEVM.DAC.PACE.EDU>
Organization: New York Area SAS Users Group
Subject: New York SAS Users Group Meeting Announcement
For members of SAS-L in the Tri-State area who are also members
of the New York Area SAS Users Group (NYASUG):
The next meeting of the New York Area SAS Users Group will be on
Thursday, December 4th. This will be a half day meeting, with 5
scheduled presentations. This meeting has a "mixed bag"
presentation slate, with dicussion topics ranging from issues in
coding applications that are portable across platforms to
alternatives when SAS procs are too memory intensive.
This meeting is being helded at the TIAA/CREF Teachers Insurance
building. Directions to the TIAA/CREF building appear later in
this note.
The following are abstracts of the scheduled presentations:
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And All With The Push of a Button !
By Ray Pass, ASG Inc.
This presentation describes an application that uses SAS
cooperatively on different platforms (via SAS/CONNECT). The
application also uses other non-SAS PC software tools. The final
product is a formatted MS Word document which is derived from
data maintained in several MS Excel worksheet files (directly
accessed via SAS/ACCESS) combined with production data which is
independently maintained in SAS data sets on a UNIX box. The end
user initiates the process from a Windows 95 desktop icon, and
never interacts with SAS other than to fill in desired values for
selection variables on a SAS window display screen. The final
documents are automatically named and archived, and may be
printed at time of development. The interaction between PC SAS,
UNIX SAS, MS Excel and MS Word is automated and transparent to
the end user. It all happens with the proverbial "push of a
button".
Biography
Ray Pass is a SAS consultant with ASG, Inc. and has been using
the SAS system for too many years. He is the co-author, with Ron
Cody, of Programming SAS by Example (1995) and has delivered many
invited papers at national, regional and local SAS user groups.
Ray's primary areas of expertise in the SAS system are report
generation and data manipulation. In addition to teaching SAS
courses, Ray has also been quite active in organizing and
participating in SAS user group activities on various levels.
Ray was one of the founders of both the New York Area SAS Users
Group (NYASUG) and the NorthEast SAS Users Group (NESUG). Ray
co-chaired the first two NESUG annual conferences ('88, '89) and
has been a Section Chair at many SAS Users' Group International
(SUGI) conferences.
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Reading Landscape Data Files
By Henyu Chen, New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center
The term 'Landscape' refers to the layout of data files created
with spreadsheet programs in which the rows are used for
variables and the columns for records. The landscape data
structure is very useful in clinical studies where instruments
administered to evaluate subjects can each contain hundreds of
questions. However, to use the DATA STEP to read information
from such landscape data files into a SAS data set is not
straightforward. This is because the SAS assumes a 'portrait'
format for data, where the rows are records and the columns are
variables. The process of converting the landscape data files to
the portrait SAS data set involves the DATA STEP and the PROC
STEP, and this tutorial will review the steps needed. The focus
will be on how to handle the landscape data files with mixed data
types using logical control, techniques of splitting and
combining data files, the INPUT function, etc., and how to
control data errors. The tutorial will also address how to
organize code efficiently using the SAS Macro language.
Biography
Mr. Hanyu Chen has a MPH in biostatistics and an MA in sociology.
He has more than 10 years experience in SAS programming and
tutoring, and is also proficient in other computer languages. He
has held positions as data manager and analyst, and as
statistical consultant. He is currently working as data manager
and analyst at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
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Portable Data Processing
By Denis Michel, PharmaNet, Inc.
In the past, we wrote SAS programs and printed the output for
users. Advances in technology and user sophistication have
changed the way we operate. In the pharmaceutical industry, we
now transfer data and programs among global affiliates, other
companies (e.g. contract research organizations), and regulatory
agencies (e.g. FDA). This paper presents "portable data
processing" as it applies to providing users with data and
programs. Issues discussed are SAS transport files, transferring
and converting SAS files to other formats, documentation of data
contents, and writing programs for portability. SAS code is
provided to illustrate the various concepts of portable data
processing.
Biography
Denis Michel develops software applications for the delivery of
research data to users at PharmaNet, Inc. He has 15 years
experience in clinical data processing and has used SAS since
1985.
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A Non-Memory Intensive Alternative to PROC MEANS & PROC SUMMARY
By Jack S. Yang, Citibank
PROC MEANS and PROC SUMMARY offer powerful ways to summarize and
report data. However, these procedures have machine dependent
memory limitations that become all too apparent when dealing with
large data sets. This paper features a powerful but
easy-to-implement alternative to PROC MEANS or PROC SUMMARY using
a DATA step; or to approaches based on a _NULL_ DATA step. The
alternative method has virtually no memory limitation and
typically outperforms the aforementioned procedures in terms of
run time. The paper details an implementation of this method
along with sample performance benchmarks.
Biography
Jack Yang is an Assistant Vice President at Citibank Credit
Services. He has extensive experience in financial services
using SAS in analysis and applications development too. He holds
a BA in economics from Brooklyn College and MBA in Finance and
Operations Management from Columbia University.
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All The Data That Fits, We Print
By Janet Steulpner, ASG Inc.
How many times do we want to print sample data from a whole SAS
database? Typically, one runs a PROC CONTENTS or a PROC SQL
followed by multiple PROC PRINT's to determine the names of all
data sets and print some or all of their observations. This
method is tedious, time consuming and error prone. The paper
explores several ways of capturing the member names stored in a
SAS catalog and then, using the SAS Macro Language, creating a
program to print sample observations from each data set.
Biography
Janet E. Steulpner holds several degrees in the sciences and has
worked in the pharmaceutical industry for seven years. She has
used SAS for over 16 years on a number of platforms including
MVS, UNIX, OS/2 and Windows. Originally a systems programmer,
she now focuses upon applications programming. Her primary SAS
interests include coding, writing about SAS, and teaching.
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The agenda for the December 4th meeting is:
08:30 - 09:00 Continental Breakfast
09:00 - 09:45 And All With The Push of a Button !
Ray Pass
09:45 - 10:15 Reading Landscape Data Files
Hanyu Chen
10:15 - 10:45 Break and Random Access
10:45 - 11:30 Portable Data Processing
Denis Michel
11:30 - 12:00 A Non-Memory Intensive Alternative to
PROC MEANS and PROC SUMMARY
Jack Yang
12:00 - 12:30 All the Data That Fits, We Print
Janet Stuelpner
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Directions to the meeting site:
TIAA / CREF Teachers Insurance
730 Third Avenue (at 46th Street)
17th Floor
New York, NY 10017
By SUBWAY
From The West Side
Take the BMT (N or R) or IRT (1, 2, 3 or 9) to Times Square 42nd
street. Take the shuttle at 42nd street to Grand Central
Station. Exit at Lexington Avenue. Walk east to Third Avenue,
the north. Or take the IND (E or F, towards Queens) to Lexington
Avenue at 53rd street. Use the Third Avenue exit and walk south.
From The East Side
Take the IRT (4, 5 or 6) to Grand Central Station 42nd Street.
Exit at Lexington Avenue. Walk east to Third Avenue and then
north. There is also a 51st street local stop on the Lexington
line. Exit at Lexington Avenue and walk south to Third Avenue
and 46th street.
From Queens
Take the IND (E or F) to the Lexington Avenue stop at 53rd
street. Use the Third Avenue exit and walk south.
By BUS
Take the #104 going South to 42nd street and Third Avenue. From
there, walk north.
Any 5th Avenue or Lexington Avenue bus going south. Get off at
the stop closest to 45-46th street and walk east to Third Avenue.
The 2nd Avenue bus south to 45-46th street and walk west.
Any Madison Avenue or Third Avenue bus to the stop closest to
45-46th street and walk east to Third Avenue.
By CAR
From the east
Take the FDR Drive, then head west to Third Avenue.
From the west
Take the West Side Highway to 48th street (next exit is 42nd
street). Head east to Lexington Avenue and then south to 46th
street. The entrance is on Third Avenue.
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For further information about this meeting, or the New York Area
SAS Users Group, please contact the group's liaison:
Jean LaFrance
FISA
450 / 460 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 857-1435
E-Mail: JcLaFrance@Aol.Com
