WELCOME TO PhilaSUG

Agenda



Click on any hyperlinked topic for an abstract
12:15 - 1:00 Registration*
1:00 - 1:10 President's opening remarks and an introduction to Beaver College by Dr. Ned Wolff
1:10 - 2:00 What's New in Version 8?
Carl LaChappelle, SAS Institute, Cary, NC
2:00 - 2:15 Breakout, Refreshments, Posters *
2:15 - 2:45 SASHELP: A Backstage Pass
Tim Kelly, Synteract, Inc.
2:45 - 3:15 Proc Report
Kerry Deem, Covance, Inc.
3:15 - 3:30 Breakout, Refreshments, Posters *
3:30 - 3:40 Open Forum, Business Issues
3:40 - 4:30 Web Enabling the SAS System
Carl LaChappelle, SAS Institute, Cary, NC
4:30 Meeting adjourns and Dinner
* Light refreshments will be served during breaks

You are invited to join the speakers and the PhilaSUG Executive Committee for dinner at a nearby restaurant at the conclusion of the meeting. The location will be announced at the meeting.


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Abstracts


Papers

What's New in Version 8
Carl LaChapelle, SAS Institute, Cary, NC

Grey Towers Castle, Beaver College ABSTRACT:
A tremendous amount of new features and functionality has been added to the SAS System in Version 8. From the transparent access to external data sources, to the new presentation capabilities supplied by the Output Delivery System, The SAS System has many new features.

We'll start by looking at the new features for accessing and manipulating data, and work our way through The SAS System. We'll look at each of the key components of the SAS System, and see how they have been improved in Version 8.

BIOGRAPHY:
Carl LaChapelle is the director of the Display Products division at SAS Institute. He has been an employee of SAS Institute for the past 15 years. He is responsible for the development of SAS/AF, SAS/FSP, and AppDev Studio products. Over the years he has worked on many parts of the SAS system. He is currently working on getting SAS V8.1, and AppDev Studio 2.0 ready to ship.


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SASHELP: A Backstage Pass
Tim Kelly, Synteract, Inc.

Kuch Recreation and Athletic Center, Beaver College ABSTRACT:
The great thing about SAS is that there are multiple ways to get the final result. Whether you're coding edit checks, creating tables or listings, or you just need a work around, using SAS gives you many options. Each user has there own style and method when it comes to programming. What makes a good programmer is knowing more than one way to get the final result.

The ability to understand and know where SAS stores information and how it can be attained can be very beneficial. The SASHELP library, in particular, stores information that is very useful no matter what you are programming. This paper will describe several data types available within the SASHELP library and show how the information can be utilized. This will prove to be a stepping stone into a volume of information available at your fingertips.

BIOGRAPHY:
Tim Kelly is currently employed by Synteract, Inc. as a programmer analyst. He is a graduate of Bloomsburg University with a degree in Mathematics.

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Proc Report
Kerry Deem, Covance, Inc.
Murphy Hall, Beaver College ABSTRACT:
PROC REPORT is a very powerful reporting tool. When generating tables that summarize data, it is sometimes necessary to add percentages (as (97%)) and/or ranges (as 30,54) as part of the data display. Displaying special characters such as parentheses and commas in PROC REPORT, while challenging, can be accomplished in several ways. One method using picture formats must be used with care. The picture must be set up properly or errors may occur. In addition, negative numbers must be handled as a special case. Another method is to create a character variable that includes these special characters. This paper describes a method that conditionally displays parentheses and commas. These special characters are added as variables to a data set. The technique employed is both simple and straightforward. The keys to this method are to employ appropriate SPACING and WIDTH in the DEFINE statements of PROC REPORT for those variables. This will give the appearance of either the picture format or the character variable without the hassle and maintains the actual data values (percentages or ranges) as numeric variables. Displaying special characters such as parentheses and commas in PROC REPORT can be accomplished in several ways. One way is to use picture formats. Care must be taken to ensure that the picture is correct or unexpected results can occur. Also, negative numbers have to be explicitly handled as a special case. Another way is to create a character variable that includes these characters. This paper employs code to conditionally display parentheses and commas. These special characters are actually added as variables to the data set. This technique is simple and straightforward. Keys to using this method are to employ SPACING= 0 and WIDTH=1 in the define statements for those columns/variables. This will give the appearance of either the picture format or the character variable without the hassle and maintains the actual data values as numeric variables.

BIOGRAPHY:
Kerry Deem is currently employed by Covance, Inc. as a programmer analyst. He is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Computer Science. In addition, he has completed a certificate program from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science in conjunction with Covance and SAS Institute.


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Web Enabling The SAS System
Carl LaChapelle, SAS Institute, Cary, NC
ABSTRACT:
You've been using the data services and computational power of The SAS System from your desktop for quite a few years. Lately you've been using the incredible ability of the Internet to look up information. Can the power of The SAS System be combined with the Internet's ability to distribute information? Absolutely!

We'll take a look at the tools that The SAS System provides to create web based information delivery applications. We'll see how you can publish you monthly reports on the Internet. We'll explore Java programs running in your web browser or web server that accesses your data warehouse. Finally, we'll look beyond the browser, and see how you can access the power of The SAS System from the new range of wireless Personal Digital Assistants, and cell phones.

BIOGRAPHY:
Carl LaChapelle is the director of the Display Products division at SAS Institute. He has been an employee of SAS Institute for the past 15 years. He is responsible for the development of SAS/AF, SAS/FSP, and AppDev Studio products. Over the years he has worked on many parts of the SAS system. He is currently working on getting SAS V8.1, and AppDev Studio 2.0 ready to ship.


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Posters


Using ODS & SAS/GRAPH® Software and MXG®
OS/390® SAS Version 8 WEB GIFS and HTML
Neal Musitano Jr.
Department of Veterans Affairs

OS/390 mainframe computer performance data is collected using IBM System Management Facilities (SMF) and Resource Measurement Facility (RMF) data. The raw SMF/RMF data is processed with MXG and SAS software into an easily usable SASr format.

This paper utilizes that performance data. The MXG Performance Database, i.e., daily, weekly or monthly contains millions of performance variable values all in SASr readable format.

The intent of this paper is not to explain MXG software, which is SASr source code, but to display some user examples of OS/390 computer performance graphs and reports as WEB GIFS and HTML output utilizing SAS Version 8r and the MXG Computer Performance Database as input.

The WEB GIFS displayed were produced on an OS/390 mainframe using the SAS/Graph GIF driver. The WEB GIFS and HTML reports are updated daily on the mainframe intranet Webserver for viewing via a WEB browser.

Neal Musitano Jr is a Senior Computer Specialist, with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefits Administration, Benefits Delivery Center, located in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The VBA is responsible for processing Veterans Benefits and Services. Neal holds a B.A. in Physics and a B.S. in Computer Science from Youngstown State University. He has been working in data processing since 1978, on Honeywell and IBM mainframes and NCR communication processors. He has been a SAS user on MVS/OS platforms since 1982. Neal is a member of the Philadelphia SAS Users Group - PhilaSUG, the Philadelphia Computer Measurement Group - PHILACMG, and has presented at the local, regional and national level.




Using SAS Tabulate HTML Formatter
Web Publishing Tool - By Examples
Shi-Tao Yeh, EDP Contract Services

SAS Web Publishing Tools are SAS macros which enable you to convert your data files, output files to HTML format and to display it on your Web browser. This paper explains one of SAS Formatters, known as Tab formatter and how to invoke this macro with provided examples. The examples illustrate how to enhance your tabulation output on the Web browses.

The SAS product utilized in this paper is SAS BASE, with SAS Formatters installed on Unix platform.

Shi-Tao Yeh is a senior consultant at EDP Contract Services with assignments to SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. Shi-Tao's areas of expertise are SAS Base, SAS/STAT, SAS/GRAPH , SAS/AF and SAS/FSP . He has a Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania and has been using SAS software for twenty-three years.




Automatically Converting Data Set Specifications on
Excel to a SAS Program Used to Assign Data Set
Attributes - An Approach to Global Data Mart
Building Process
Melanie Paules, Smithkline Beecham Pharmaceuticals
Pilita Canete, EDP Contract Services
Shi-Tao Yeh, EDP Contract Services

The Global Data Mart (GdMart) is a collection of SAS datasets in a standard structure that are used for reporting clinical data. The data mart building process entails mapping data fields from the Oracle database into SAS datasets based on mapping specifications. The data mart mapping specifications are held in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

This paper describes an automated approach to building an attribute dictionary and the code to assign the attributes to the datasets during the data mart building process. The approach includes two steps. The first step uses a nested SAS program with SAS macros to read the dataset specification from Excel worksheets and build an attribute dictionary that is transported to UNIX. The second step uses a SAS macro to assign the attributes to the data mart data sets within the mapping programs. The outcome is an attribute dictionary in the form of a SAS dataset and a SAS macro that can be invoked within the mapping programs to assign the attributes to the reporting datasets.

The SAS product used in this paper is SAS BASE on PC and UNIX platforms.

Melanie Paules is a Lead Programmer/Analyst at SmithKline Beecham. Her responsibilities include leading the development of data mart building and reporting software used in the summarization and presentation of clinical trial data. Melanie has a MS degree in Applied Statistics from Villanova University. She has been a SAS user for 11 years.

Pilita R. Canete is a consultant at EDP Contract Services working for Smithkline Beecham. She has more than 10 years experience of using SAS in different platforms. She has an M.S and B.S Statistics Degree from the University of the Philippines.

Shi-Tao Yeh is a senior consultant at EDP Contract Services with assignments to SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals. Shi-Tao's areas of expertise are SAS Base, SAS/STAT, SAS/GRAPH , SAS/AF and SAS/FSP . He has a Ph.D. degree from University of Pennsylvania and has been using SAS software for twenty-three years.



Proc Forms- Mailing Labels Without Word Processing
John J. Cohen, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

Mail merge programs in word processors or specialized packages meet most of our needs. But when bulk mailing is required or the pre-processing and selection is extensive and/or frequent, a programming tool is handier. The SASR System can combine both, offering all the data manipulation capabilities we know and love and a label formatting utility. This utility, Proc Forms, will be described here.

John Cohen is an IT Support Team Leader for the Promotions Response Analysis Department at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals. A SAS user since 1980 in a variety of business and academic settings, he is active in several SAS user groups and will be a Section Co-chair at DiamondSUG in San Francisco, CA and at NESUG 2000 in Philadelphia, PA.


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Using Proc SQL to Create Ad Hoc Reports
Anne Marie Smith, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals

The purpose of this poster is to demonstrate the powerful features of PROC SQL in the creation of ad hoc reports for clinical trial research. The reports created are for the display, summation and descriptive statistical analysis of clinical trial research data. The SAS programming methods discussed are flexible and summarize Phase I to Phase III clinical trial data; adverse events, study medications and potentially clinically significant lab test values. Within the SAS programs written here, the use of PROC SQL affords for shorter, easier to understand programs with short execution times, while making the programming code efficient, flexible and maintainable.

Anne Marie Smith is an independent consultant with 20 years experience in the Software Industry. Visit her website at http://geocities.com/rainbow_softwr, the homepage of Rainbow Communications and Software Inc. Presently Anne is doing Statistical Programming consulting work for the Pharmaceutical Industry and working with AstraZeneca in PA.


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Last Update: 9:27 PM 5/6/00