Chrome Experiments

Here are some nice data visualization methods elaborated in http://www.chromeexperiments.com/

 

I created one using Social Collider for searching @smartdataco and generated this data mapcoolied

The site  ( which goes by the tag of  Not your mother’s Javascript) is created by Google ,Creator of Chrome Browser.

 

In light of these deeply held beliefs, we created this site to showcase cool experiments for both JavaScript and web browsers.

These experiments were created by designers and programmers from around the world. Their work is making the web faster, more fun, and more open – the same spirit in which we built Google Chrome.

Here is an experiment called Canopy available at http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/canopy/

It generates Fractals

 

Another more useful experiment is Social Collider which enables you to search Twitter for specific words, and create a data map for that

SAS Global Conference 2009

The resources for SAS Global Conference are now online at

http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings09/TOC.html

The SAS Global Conference starts next week on March 22 till March 25 in Washington D.C.It is one of the oldest ,most renowned community conferences for any statistical software. Ever.

Here is a link to the SAS2009 Ballot Results in which users were polled on what features they like /dislike and want added to SAS Institute‘s suite of products and indeed to the SAS Language itself

 

http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings09/Ballot09.pdf

I really liked the blog as well the YouTube video here –http://blogs.sas.com/sgf/

 

Citation:

SAS Institute Inc. 2009. Proceedings of
the SAS® Global Forum 2009 Conference. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc.

Business Intelligence and The Heisenberg Principle

The Heisenberg Principle states that for certain things accuracy and certainty in knowing one quality ( say position of an atom) has to be a trade off with certainty of another quality (like momentum). I was drawn towards the application of this while in an email interaction with Edith Ohri , who is a leading data mining person in Israel and has her own customized GT solution.Edith said that it seems it is impossible to have data that is both accurate (data quality) and easy to view across organizations (data transparency). More often than not the metrics that we measure are the metrics we are forced to measure due to data adequacy and data quality issues.

Now there exists a tradeoff in the price of perfect information in managerial economics , but is it really true that the Business Intelligence we deploy is more often than not constrained by simple things like input data and historic database tables.And that more often than not Data quality is the critical constraint that determines speed and efficacy of deployment.

I personally find that much more of the time in database projects goes in data measurement,aggregation, massaging outliers, missing value assumptions than in the “high value” activities like insight generation and business issue resolution.

Is it really true ? Analysis is easy but the data which is tough ?

What do you think in terms of the uncertainty inherent in data quality and data transparency-

Accelerate your business – Even in a weak Economy

Accelerate Your Business–Even in a Weak Economy

Learn how you can use business intelligence to accelerate your company’s growth, even in this difficult economy.  This free webinar from SAP Business Objects will help you discover how you can become a faster, leaner, more agile business by using BI focused on three core strategies:  Cutting operating expenses and discretionary spending; using technology to eliminate inefficiencies, and giving  first priority to your existing customers.  LEARN MORE…

http://events.businessobjects.com/forms/Q109/road/web/index.php?partner=SMtoday1

 

Here ‘s  a nice webinar to attend if you have time.

Modeling Visualization Macros

Here is a nice SAS Macro from Wensui’s blog at http://statcompute.spaces.live.com/blog/

Its particularly useful for Modelling chaps, I have seen a version of this Macro sometime back which had curves also plotted but this one is quite nice too

SAS MACRO TO CALCULATE GAINS CHART WITH KS

%macro ks(data = , score = , y = );

options nocenter mprint nodate;

data _tmp1;
  set 
&data;
  where &score ~= . and y in (1, 0);
  random = ranuni(1);
  keep &score &y random;
run;

proc sort data = _tmp1 sortsize = max;
  by descending &score random;
run;

data _tmp2;
  set _tmp1;
  by descending &score random;
  i + 1;
run;

proc rank data = _tmp2 out = _tmp3 groups = 10;
  var i;
run;

proc sql noprint;
create table
  _tmp4 as
select
  i + 1       as decile,
  count(*)    as cnt,
  sum(&y)     as bad_cnt,
  min(&score) as min_scr format = 8.2,
  max(&score) as max_scr format = 8.2
from
  _tmp3
group by
  i;

select
  sum(cnt) into :cnt
from
  _tmp4;

select
  sum(bad_cnt) into :bad_cnt
from
  _tmp4;    
quit;

data _tmp5;
  set _tmp4;
  retain cum_cnt cum_bcnt cum_gcnt;
  cum_cnt  + cnt;
  cum_bcnt + bad_cnt;
  cum_gcnt + (cnt – bad_cnt);
  cum_pct  = cum_cnt  / &cnt;
  cum_bpct = cum_bcnt / &bad_cnt;
  cum_gpct = cum_gcnt / (&cnt – &bad_cnt);
  ks       = (max(cum_bpct, cum_gpct) – min(cum_bpct, cum_gpct)) * 100;

  format cum_bpct percent9.2 cum_gpct percent9.2
         ks       6.2;
  
  label decile    = ‘DECILE’
        cnt       = ‘#FREQ’
        bad_cnt   = ‘#BAD’
        min_scr   = ‘MIN SCORE’
        max_scr   = ‘MAX SCORE’
        cum_gpct  = ‘CUM GOOD%’
        cum_bpct  = ‘CUM BAD%’
        ks        = ‘KS’;
run;

title "%upcase(&score) KS";
proc print data  = _tmp5 label noobs;
  var decile cnt bad_cnt min_scr max_scr cum_bpct cum_gpct ks;
run;    
title;

proc datasets library = work nolist;
  delete _: / memtype = data;
run;
quit;

%mend ks;    

data test;
  do i = 1 to 1000;
    score = ranuni(1);
    if score * 2 + rannor(1) * 0.3 > 1.5 then y = 1;
    else y = 0;
    output;
  end;
run;

%ks(data = test, score = score, y = y);

/*
SCORE KS              
                                MIN         MAX
DECILE    #FREQ    #BAD       SCORE       SCORE     CUM BAD%    CUM GOOD%        KS
   1       100      87         0.91        1.00      34.25%        1.74%      32.51
   2       100      78         0.80        0.91      64.96%        4.69%      60.27
   3       100      49         0.69        0.80      84.25%       11.53%      72.72
   4       100      25         0.61        0.69      94.09%       21.58%      72.51
   5       100      11         0.51        0.60      98.43%       33.51%      64.91
   6       100       3         0.40        0.51      99.61%       46.51%      53.09
   7       100       1         0.32        0.40     100.00%       59.79%      40.21
 &#
160; 8       100       0         0.20        0.31     100.00%       73.19%      26.81
   9       100       0         0.11        0.19     100.00%       86.60%      13.40
  10       100       0         0.00        0.10     100.00%      100.00%       0.00
*/

Its particularly useful for Modelling , I have seen a version of this Macro sometime back which had curves also plotted but this one is quite nice too.

Here is another example of a SAS Macro for ROC Curve  and this one comes from http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi22/POSTERS/PAPER219.PDF

APPENDIX A
Macro
/***************************************************************/;
/* MACRO PURPOSE: CREATE AN ROC DATASET AND PLOT */;
/* */;
/* VARIABLES INTERPRETATION */;
/* */;
/* DATAIN INPUT SAS DATA SET */;
/* LOWLIM MACRO VARIABLE LOWER LIMIT FOR CUTOFF */;
/* UPLIM MACRO VARIABLE UPPER LIMIT FOR CUTOFF */;
/* NINC MACRO VARIABLE NUMBER OF INCREMENTS */;
/* I LOOP INDEX */;
/* OD OPTICAL DENSITY */;
/* CUTOFF CUTOFF FOR TEST */;
/* STATE STATE OF NATURE */;
/* TEST QUALITATIVE RESULT WITH CUTOFF */;
/* */;
/* DATE WRITTEN BY */;
/* */;
/* 09-25-96 A. STEAD */;
/***************************************************************/;
%MACRO ROC(DATAIN,LOWLIM,UPLIM,NINC=20);
OPTIONS MTRACE MPRINT;
DATA ROC;
SET &DATAIN;
LOWLIM = &LOWLIM; UPLIM = &UPLIM; NINC = &NINC;
DO I = 1 TO NINC+1;
CUTOFF = LOWLIM + (I-1)*((UPLIM-LOWLIM)/NINC);
IF OD > CUTOFF THEN TEST="R"; ELSE TEST="N";
OUTPUT;
END;
DROP I;
RUN;
PROC PRINT;
RUN;
PROC SORT; BY CUTOFF;
RUN;
PROC FREQ; BY CUTOFF;
TABLE TEST*STATE / OUT=PCTS1 OUTPCT NOPRINT;
RUN;
DATA TRUEPOS; SET PCTS1; IF STATE="P" AND TEST="R";
TP_RATE = PCT_COL; DROP PCT_COL;
RUN;
DATA FALSEPOS; SET PCTS1; IF STATE="N" AND TEST="R";
FP_RATE = PCT_COL; DROP PCT_COL;
RUN;
DATA ROC; MERGE TRUEPOS FALSEPOS; BY CUTOFF;
IF TP_RATE = . THEN TP_RATE=0.0;
IF FP_RATE = . THEN FP_RATE=0.0;
RUN;
PROC PRINT;
RUN;
PROC GPLOT DATA=ROC;
PLOT TP_RATE*FP_RATE=CUTOFF;
RUN;
%MEND;

VERSION 9.2 of SAS has a macro called %ROCPLOT http://support.sas.com/kb/25/018.html

SPSS also uses ROC curve and there is a nice document here on that

http://www.childrensmercy.org/stats/ask/roc.asp

Here are some examples from R with the package ROCR from

http://rocr.bioinf.mpi-sb.mpg.de/

 

image

Using ROCR’s 3 commands to produce a simple ROC plot:
pred <- prediction(predictions, labels)
perf <- performance(pred, measure = "tpr", x.measure = "fpr")
plot(perf, col=rainbow(10))

The graphics are outstanding in the R package and here is an example

Citation:

Tobias Sing, Oliver Sander, Niko Beerenwinkel, Thomas Lengauer.
ROCR: visualizing classifier performance in R.
Bioinformatics 21(20):3940-3941 (2005).

 

New Search Engine ?

Here is a new search engine called Kosmix which claims to help make the world more organized. Now I gave it the Google story test which means I compared it’s results to Google’s results for

1) Google / Kosmix

2) Jim Goodnight /Sergey Brin

3) Regression

4) Data Mining

Results were frighteningly good. Some screenshots are below. What Kosmix does is aggregate searches across various platforms like the Net, and adds Images, Videos Results so it looks like a report compiled on specific search word rather than a list of links like Google does.

Take a look.

 

image image

image image

Clearly Kosmix is the winner because it adds Google Search, You Tube search and Google Blog Search results as well to its results. I have talked a long time back on the need for Google to give more customization especially for business research users ( see item 10 b).

Google continues to be a list of Ranked web pages, while Kosmix is a new organized information source.I just hope it does not end up like www.cuil.com which started with a  big hype and is now claiming to be the biggest search engine in the world with the largest index  , but not the biggest users I guess.

http://www.cuil.com/info/features/

Any search engine that places a category of Indian film actors when you search for “Ajay Ohri” can not do too well ! Period.

image

A Farewell to Guns

A 17 yr old teenage German shot and killed 15 people at his former high school and was killed himself. In Alabama ten people are dead including a family that was wiped out. A mentally disturbed ethnic Korean student killed 30 people in Virginia tech before shooting himself. Supporters of guns including the NRA, ex Army types , plain rural hunting people continue to cling to guns and will do more so as the economic environment worsens.

These people abuse the semantics of the American Second Amendment which provided for arms for a militia , but my friend ,teenagers do not constitute militia nor do mentally disturbed students.With the worlds most expensive and powerful army do they still need a militia. While applying to and getting bailouts   from the Government do they still need individual gun rights.

In California an ethic Chinese engineer shot and killed his boss and head of Hr before surrendering. Bad Bosses are nothing new yet this marks a new low in free availability and abuse of weapons.Violence and anger have no creed , or ethnicity.

A gun in the hand of a person untrained in the implications of gun shot wounds is as lethal a weapon like a deadly poison snake whose fangs have been temporarily been trimmed. If you ask a layman to operate surgery without teaching him how to use a scalpel he could do much less damage than semi automatic weapons in immature and still malleable minds , who resort to binges of violence and outbursts.

The gun trade has thrived on the misery of a few victims and the mirth of many supporters. Researchers use billions of dollars to find cures to diseases that kill people, yet the common sense cure for shot gun ,hand gun , automatic domestic guns is missing- Ban these guns. They are of no use in the military at all –hand guns lack effective offensive ranges and they are increasingly killing too many innocent people.

Charlton Heston is dead- and it is time to pry the guns  from his cold dead hands.