Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:46:02 -0500 From: "Muir, Timothy" Subject: BASUG Quarterly Meeting Announcement WHAT: Quarterly BASUG Meeting WHEN: Wednesday, December 5, 8:30AM to 12:30 WHERE: Holiday Inn - Newton (Directions are included below) 399 Grove Street Newton, MA 02462 617-969-5300 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- INDIVIDUAL, ON-LINE REGISTRATION REQUIRED. NO EMAIL! To Register visit: http://www.basug.org/register.shtml CONTACT: If you have questions about the meeting contact: Tim Muir (timothy.muir@compaq.com) - (978) 264-5137 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please Note the following : This meeting will be at a Beginner to Advanced level of SAS. AGENDA: 8:30 - 8:45 - Sign in and Coffee Break 8:45 - 9:00 - Meeting Announcements and Introductions 9:00 - 9:45 - 'Accessing Data in Microsoft Excel using SAS' by Paul Grant 9:45 - 10:15 - 'Quick Retrieval From Large Files Using The Direct-access Method ' by Wendell Refior 10:15 - 10:30 - Break and Refreshments 10:30 - 10:45 - BASUG Business 10:45 - 11:30 - 'The Fuzzy Feeling SAS Provides: Electronic Matching of Records without Common Keys' by Charles Patridge 11:30 - 11:40 - Stretch Break 11:40 - 12:05 - 'Two Reasons to Use PROC REPORT Instead of PROC PRINT: PANELS= and FLOW Options' by Kimball Lewis 12:05 - 12:30 "Powerful Techniques For Data Processing Using Formats" by Tim Muir ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- ABSTRACTS AND BIOS: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- 'Using and Accessing Microsoft Excel Files' by Paul Grant SAS programmers often have to read data from and write data to Microsoft Excel. This presentation will review the various ways of doing this. We'll look at the code and SAS modules needed to implement each method and also the pro's and con's of using each. This will be a beginning level presentation and assumes the listener has no experience accessing Excel data. Paul Grant is a Systems Engineer at SAS Institute's Boston regional office. He has been active at SUGI, NESUG and BASUG as a chair and as a presenter. Paul has been using SAS software in a variety of industries since 1981. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- 'Quick Retrieval From Large Files Using The Direct-access Method' by Wendell Refior How can you get faster access to a subset of records from a 12 Million record file? To avoid, always reading the whole file, Wendell will demonstrate a creative solution taking advantage of the DIRECT ACCESS method, also called RANDOM ACCESS, using the POINT= option on the SET statement. The overhead involved in this approach implies that it is applicable only to cases where repeated access to the same file is routinely required. The method actually involves using two SET statements within the same DATA step. Wendell will explain the formation of two separate files, one of which is like the card index for books in a library that points to a specific book. The year 2000 Medicare hospital inpatient file, included up 9 different five-digit ICD-9 Diagnosis Codes for a total of 72 Million diagnosis X unique hospital discharge combinations. To pull a relatively small file of about 400,000 from the 12 Million, retrieval time was reduced from about 2 HOURS to less than 20 MINUTES. Wendell F. Refior is employed by Boston Scientific as a Senior Statistical Programmer, Data Analytics Dept., Healthcare Strategies Division at their Natick world headquarters. His responsibilities include estimating national projections of the Medicare-aged patient population with certain disease diagnoses or having specific surgical procedures. This requires processing and analyzing large files of Medicare data annually released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly called HCFA) and summarizing data for display as data cubes on the company's internal website. Wendell has been programming in SAS for over 20 years. He has been a speaker at NESUG and BASUG. He is an active member of the BASUG Steering Committee and has served as President and Secretary. Wendell has over 8 years experience in analysis of hospital discharges, and medical or disability insurance claims. In addition to teaching and consulting in SAS programming, his experience includes two years doing pharmaceutical clinical trials analysis in the Boston area, and four years of survey sampling design and programming at the Research Triangle Institute in RTP, N.C. Wendell holds a Master of Science degree in Statistics from University of Connecticut, Storrs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- 'The Fuzzy Feeling SAS Provides: Electronic Matching of Records without Common Keys' by Charles Patridge (Charles_S_Patridge@prodigy.net) This article briefly describes a sample application where the normal SAS merge or SQL join would fail to provide the kind of results needed or hoped for. By using a set of SAS functions, custom programs and macros, and simple scoring techniques and common sense, the author developed a working model that matches two unlinked files that contain no common keys. The fuzzy matching process developed entailed over 1500 man hours of development, testing and revisions after being applied to several different project/ assignments. Charles has been using SAS since 1979 in various positions, companies and consulting assignments. In 1983 Charles founded HASUG (Hartford, CT Area SAS User Group) and is currently a member of its steering committee. He is founder and director of SAS CONSIG (Consultant Special Interest Group), and creator and Webmaster for the SAS CONSIG website. He has presented numerous papers and accepted speaking engagements to HASUG, BASUG, NYSUG, NESUG, DCSUG and SUGI as well as given presentations at the Institute for Graphic Communications. Charles holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Central Connecticut State University, has accumulated 45 hrs of graduate studies in Statistics, and has completed parts I & II of the Society of Actuaries, HIAA and LOMA exams. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- 'Two Reasons to Use PROC REPORT Instead of PROC PRINT: PANELS= and FLOW Options' by Kimball Lewis PROC REPORT is a very powerful and flexible too, but unless you are a report writer or need to make custom reports on a regular basis, tackling the PROC REPORT manual and using it enough to get comfortable with its syntax may not be worth the effort for many SAS programmers. However, there are two features of PROC REPORT, PANELS= and FLOW, that the average user ought to know about because they provide a terrific alternative to PROC PRINT when viewing very long or very wide data. Kimball Lewis is a research analyst at Harvard Business School and in independent consultant. Prior to that, he worked for several years for Mathematica Policy Research. Mr. Lewis has been using SAS for data management, analysis, and report writing for 7 years. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- 'Powerful Techniques For Data Processing Using Formats' by Tim Muir Switching industries from clinical trials where small data sets (<1K observations) are typically used to database marketing, in which observations run into the millions is quite an experience. The amount of time it takes to handle these large datasets can seem like forever; reading in millions of observations from each data set, sorting, then merging could take forever at times. This paper will show where performance gains can be obtained using formats in place of sorting/merging for sub setting purposes and creating new variables, and how easily these formats can be created. Tim Muir has been a SAS user for 9 years, supporting statistical analyses and research, primarily in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Tim is now employed at Compaq Computer Corporation in the CRM Database and Business Analysis Department, where he works to analyze customer behavior and trends for computer technology purchase and development. Tim is also a member of the BASUG steering committee and WWW.BASUG.ORG webmaster. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- DIRECTIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- DRIVING: There is plenty of parking around the building and near Showcase Cinema right next to the Crosspoint building. Parking is free. Please note that there is no train connection to this site. FROM BOSTON: Take I-90 West to Exit 15, then take Route 128 South (I-95) 1/4 mile to Exit 22. When you exit, stay right and bear right at the fork onto Grove Street. Hotel is on your left. FROM SOUTH OF BOSTON: Take Route 128 North (I-95) to Exit 22. When you exit, stay right and bear right at the fork onto Grove Street. Hotel is on your left. FROM WESTERN MASS: Take I-90 East to Exit 14, then take Route 128 South (I-95) 1/4 mile to Exit 22. When you exit, stay right and bear right at the fork onto Grove Street. Hotel is on your left. FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE: Take I-93 South to Route 128 South (I-95), follow for approximately 15 miles to Exit 22. When you exit, stay right and bear right at the fork onto Grove Street. Hotel is on your left. FROM RHODE ISLAND: Take I-95 North to Route 128 North (I-95). Follow to Exit 22. When you exit, stay right and bear right at the fork onto Grove Street. Hotel is on your left. PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: The hotel is adjacent to the Riverside T Station. >From Kenmore Square take the Green Line - D (Riverside) to the Riverside stop. Hotel is adjacent to the T Station. The hotel is also accessible from downtown Boston via Express Bus #500 (EXPRESS BUS Riverside - Downtown Via Mass. Turnpike.). See http://www.mbta.com/schedmaps/bus/index.cfm for detailed bus route and schedule. Bus drops off at Riverside T Station. Hotel is adjacent to the T Station. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- INDIVIDUAL, ON-LINE REGISTRATION REQUIRED. NO EMAIL! To Register visit: http://www.basug.org/register.shtml CONTACT: If you have questions about the meeting contact: Tim Muir (timothy.muir@compaq.com) - (978) 264-5137 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- BASUG CONTACTS: BASUG's Mail Address: BASUG PO Box 253 Boston, MA 02117 To email our Webmaster: webmaster@basug.org SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL LIST: Subscribers receive automatic e-mail notification of upcoming meetings, courses, and conferences of interest to local SAS users. 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