A Preview of User Presentations, Posters and Workshops

Presentations are lecture style and will be 10, 20, or 50-minutes in length.  Most workshop sections are 50 or 75-minutes in length and may include the opportunity for hands-on the PC instruction.

Invited presentations are listed in bold at the beginning of each section; otherwise, titles are listed in alphabetical order by last name of the author (with the exception of SAS Essentials Workshop). Workshop presenters are all invited.

WUSS 2007

Author won a Best Contributed Paper Award at WUSS 2007.

SAS defines analytics as “data-driven insight for better decisions.” Popular topics in the section include all aspects data modeling, mining, and forecasting, and well as demonstrations of analytic procedures, such as analysis of variance, logistic regression, factor analysis, and time series analyses.

The section features presentations that focus on the design, development, and implementation of SAS products that are jointly integrated as a business solution. These solutions may feature extensive use of metadata, web-enabled applications, and/or applications that integrate SAS software with other software products.

The section offers “quick-hitting” 10-minute presentations that are a very popular venue for new and seasoned presenters alike. Topics include powerful and lesser known syntax and coding tips, hard-to-find errors and work-arounds, widely applicable algorithms or macros, and creative uses or undocumented features of SAS.

The section focuses on the use of SAS to convey information through various media. Topics include graphics, data visualization, publishing, and reporting, as well as techniques for using SAS/Graph, SAS Styles, Templates and ODS.

The section focus on the design, creation, management, optimization and documentation of databases and warehouses. Popular topics include queries, metadata, and strategies for making data more accessible to the enterprise.

HOW provides attendees ‘hands-on-the-keyboard’ interaction with SAS Software. Experienced workshop presenters guide attendees through graduated examples of SAS Software techniques and capabilities while offering the opportunity to ask questions and to learn through practice.

Come to this section to hear about the skills and strategies needed to stay at the top of your game as a SAS professional. Presentations focus on variety of topics including, managing projects and programmers, exploring the latest trends for SAS skills, developing a programming style, and finding and leveraging SAS resources.

Participants in this section prepare a visual display that is available to all attendees throughout the conference, rather than conducting a lecture-style presentation.  The section often displays high-resolution graphics and/or thought-provoking concepts that require some independent study by conference participants.

The section allows novice SAS users to attend a day-long series of presentations that will guide them through the creation of Base SAS DATA step and PROC syntax. All SAS Essentials presentations are conducted by experienced SAS users who are invited to present.

The section offers step-by-step presentations on a wide variety of topics and products, aimed at all levels of SAS users. All presentations are given by experienced SAS users who are invited to present.

SAS Institute Paper Presentations

SAS Institute Experts will be presenting the
following invited papers during WUSS 2008

Nonparametric Regression Modeling in SAS Software

Weijie Cai

Moving from Listing Reports to Visual Reports using SAS/GRAPH Maps

Elizabeth Ceranowski

Be Armed With Everything You Need!

Kathy Council

Tips and Tricks for Creating Multi-Sheet Microsoft Excel Workbooks the Easy Way with SAS®

Vince DelGobbo

The Devil Is in the Details: Styles, Tips, and Tricks That Make Your Microsoft Excel Output Look Great!

Eric Gebhart

Try, Try Again: Replication-Based Variance Estimation Methods for Survey Data Analysis in SAS® 9.2

Pushpal Mukhopadhyay

Getting Started with ODS Statistical Graphics in SAS® 9.2

Robert Rodriguez

SAS Stat Studio: A Programming Environment for High-End Data Analysts

Robert Rodriguez

A Sampler of What's New in Base SAS® 9.2

Jason Secosky

User-Written DATA Step Functions

Jason Secosky

New SQL Performance Optimizations to Enhance Your SAS Client and Solution Access to the Database

Mike Whitcher


 Analytics & Statistics
Section Chairs: David Cassell   (Design Pathways)
  R. Scott Leslie (MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.)

User-friendly SAS® Macro Application for Performing All Possible Mixed Model Selection

George Fernandez
(University of Nevada - Reno)  

Evaluation of a Hospice Care Referral Program Using Cox Proportional Hazards Model

Lida Gharibvand
(University of California Riverside)

Image Is Almost Everything: Displaying Statistics Via ODS

R. Scott Leslie
(MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.)        

Application of Segmented Regression Analysis to the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Critical Drug Interaction Program

Nikki Carroll
(Kaiser Permanente)

Score Test of Proportional-Hazards Assumption for Cox Models

Xiao Chen
(UCLA)

Confidence Intervals by Linear or Loglog: You Can Have Them All! PROC LIFETEST in SAS v.8 vs. v.9

Dan DiPrimeo
Jonathan squire
Yuchen Shiu (Amgen)
Minta Wu
Daisy Wong

Surviving Left Truncation Using PROC PHREG

Aimee Foreman (ICON Clinical Research)
Ginny Lai (ICON Clinical Research LSG Group)
Dave Miller (Ovation Research Group)

Using Unobserved Components Model (UCM) for a Stock Price fluctuation

Lida Gharibvand
(University of California Riverside)   

Calculating Medication Compliance, Adherence, and Persistence in Administrative Pharmacy Claims Databases

R. Scott Leslie
(MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.)   

Testing Performance of Various Confidence Interval Methods for Non-Normal Means

Keiko Powers
(J. D. Power and Associates)

Comparing Efficiency of Cross Validated Partial Least Squares Regression and Ridge Regression Models in Predicting Spatial Variability of Total Nitrogen Concentration in Truckee River, Nevada.

Anpalaki Ragavan
(University of Nevada, Reno)

Confidence Intervals By Linear or Loglog: You Can Have Them All! PROC LIFETEST In SAS v. 8 vs. v. 9

Yucheng Shiu
(Amgen)

 Applications Development
Section Chairs: Isabel Jacobson (DoD Center for Deployment Health Research)
  Kathryn Valdes   (SRI International)

SmryEachVar: A Data-Review Routine for All Data Sets in a Libref
  PharmaSUG 2008 Best Paper In Applications Development          

Ronald Fehd
(Centers for Disease Control)
SAS to MS-Excel, Auto-Loading a Full SAS Library into a Multi-Tabbed, Labeled Column, Excel Spreadsheet   Joe Perry
(Perry & Associates Consulting)
SAS® DICTIONARY: Step by Step    Patrick Thornton
(SRI International)

Looping at a Higher Level – The %for Macro           

 Jim Anderson
(UCSF)
Practical Powerful Version Control in SAS Projects- A Rapid, Walk-Through Workshop Gordon Cumming (Wells Fargo Bank, N. A.)
Lorne Salter (Blue Shield of California)
An Optimal Way to Import Excel Worksheets into PC SAS Nathaniel Derby
(Statis Pro Data Analytics)           
Generating Code with PROC REPORT Jack Hamilton
(Kaiser Foundation Health Plan)
Generic Automated Data Dictionary for any SAS Data Set or Format Library Dale Harrington
(Kaiser Permanente)
 Turning Long-Skinny Data into Short-Wide Data Datasets the Easy Way   Joe Perry
(Perry & Associates Consulting)

Hi-Velocity SAS Coding: Applying Engineering Principles to SAS Programming Tasks

Joe Perry
(Perry & Associates Consulting)

An Introduction to PERL Regular Expressions in SAS

James Van Campen
(SRI International)

Using SAS/AF for Managing Clinical Data

Wynn Zheng
(InSite Vision)

 Coders' Corner
Section Chairs:
 Raoul Bernal        (Amgen Inc.)
  Mary McCracken (SRI International)

Windows and Unix Computers Now Have Multiple CPU’s; Why Not Control Two or Three or More Parallel Executing SAS Batch Jobs from One Master Job!

William Benjamin Jr
(Owl Computer Consultancy, LLC)

Processing Multiple Formats with Input & Output Control Data Sets in PROC FORMAT   

Thomas Billings
(Kaiser Permanente)

Finite State Machines as a Design Technique for SAS Programs; or, Turing the State of SAS

Robert Cruz
(CTB/McGraw-Hill)

Using Functions SYSFUNC and IFC to Conditionally Execute Statements in Open Code

Ronald Fehd
(Centers for Disease Control)

Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks - Using the EXCEPT Operator in PROC SQL and Generation Data Sets to Produce a Comparison Report

Stanley Fogleman
(Harvard Clinical Research Institute)

SAS® and Oracle® PL/SQL™: Partners or Competitors?   

Stanley Fogleman
(Harvard Clinical Research Institute)

Macro for Managing Date Variable in Oncology Research

Jagannath Ghosh
(Eli-Lilly and Company Consultant for MedFocus LLC)

General Methods to Use Special Characters

Dennis Gianneschi
(Amgen)

Working with Longitudinal Data

Orla Hayden
(RAND)

Exploring the Undocumented PROC SQL® _METHOD Option

Kirk Lafler
(Software Intelligence Corporation)

ACCESS-ible SAS Formats and Labels

Kathryn Martin
(UCLA)

Efficient Statistical Programming? – Let’s Work on Those Data Steps First

Keiko Powers
(J. D. Power and Associates)

Documenting Macro Programs using CATALOGS

Patrick Thornton
(SRI International)

Efficiently Handle Lists of Items using the SAS Macro Language-- Save Time and Reduce Errors

Jerry Tsai
(Clintuition)

Simple and Effective Way to Validate Clinical Graphs

Rajesh Venkkataram
(Quintiles Inc)

 Data Presentation & Business Intelligence
Section Chair Wei Cheng (Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)

Creating Your Own Worksheet Formats in exportToXL

Author won a Best Contributed Paper Award at WUSS 2007.
Nathaniel Derby
(Statis Pro Data Analytics)

Moving from Data to Information: SAS Programming to Reduce Statistical and Programming Errors

Annmaria DeMars
(University of Southern California)

Using PROC REPORT to Describe Case and Control Comparisons

Sara Yuewen Gao
(MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.)

Seven Steps to Regulatory Publication Style with Proc Report

Dennis Gianneschi
(Amgen)

Data Dependent Highlighting in Excel - Let Your Data Shine

Brian Ramos
(Biosense Webster)

Combined Line - Double Bubbles - Pie Chart

Alexandre Zolotovitski
(Sun Microsystems Inc)

 Databases & Warehouses
Section Chair: James Van Campen (SRI International)

Getting SAS® to Play Nice With Others: Connecting SAS® to Microsoft SQL Server
  SAS Global Forum 2008 Best Contributed Paper  

Candice Miller
(RAND Corp)

So, You’ve Got Data Enterprise Wide (SAS, ACCESS, EXCEL, MySQL, Oracle, and Others); Well, Let SAS Enterprise Guide Software Point-n-Click Your Way to Using It.

William Benjamin Jr
(Owl Computer Consultancy, LLC)

Database Vocabulary: Is Your Data Set a Dimension (LookUp) Table, a Fact Table or a Report?

Ronald Fehd
(Centers for Disease Control)

You’ve just Bought a Data Warehouse. Now what?

Stanley Fogleman
(Harvard Clinical Research Institute)

Demystifying PROC SQL® Join Algorithms

Kirk Lafler
(Software Intelligence Corporation)

Building Effective SAS® Indexes using Short and Distinct Keys, Covered Queries and Clustered Indexes

Kirk Lafler
(Software Intelligence Corporation)

Creating Efficient SQL - Simple Tips for Good Style

Paul Sherman
(Independent Consultant)

 Hands-on Workshops
Section Chairs: Richard Allen             (Peak Statistical Services)
  Cynthia LeardMann  (DoD Center for Deployment Health Research)
PROC REPORT: Compute Block Basics (Part II – Practicum)    Art Carpenter
(California Occidental Consultants)
ODS Statistical Graphics 101
  PharmaSUG 2008 Best Paper In Tutorials 		 Wei Cheng
(Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)
PROC SGPLOT for Quick High Quality Graphs Lora Delwiche
(University of California, Davis)
Susan Slaughter
(Avocet Solutions)
List Processing Basics: Creating and Using Lists of Macro Variables Ronald Fehd
(Centers for Disease Control)
Art Carpenter
(California Occidental Consultants) 
SAS® Web Report Studio Basics Angela Hall
Brian Miles
(Zencos Consulting)
A Hands-on Tour inside the World of PROC SQL® Kirk Lafler
(Software Intelligence Corporation)  
Writing Code in SAS® Enterprise Guide® Susan Slaughter
(Avocet Solutions)
Lora Delwiche
(University of California, Davis)

 Management, Careers, & Professional Development
Section Chair: Li Zheng (Genentech)

How to Learn SAS...and Keep Learning SAS!

Brenda Beaty
(University of Colorado)   

Beef up your Career: Job Survival Steps during this Economic Recession

Raoul Bernal
(Amgen Inc)   

Programming Certification, What’s SAS Got To Do With It? A Brief History of Changes from Version 6 to Version 9 Related to Career Development.

Robert Chastain
(Chastain Research Group, Inc.)   

SAS on a Mac?  Yes!  

Jack Hamilton
(Kaiser Foundation Health Plan)  

What's Hot, What's Not - Skills for SAS® Professionals

Authors won a Best Contributed Paper Award at WUSS 2007.

Kirk Lafler
(Software Intelligence Corporation)
Charles Shipp
(Shipp Consulting)

SAS Styles… ODS, Right? No Programming! Discover a Professional SAS Programming Style That Will Last a Career

Joe Perry
(Perry & Associates Consulting)   

Clinical Programming at a Crossroads: Meeting Today's Challenges and Preparing for Tomorrow

Dave Polus
(COMSYS Information Technology Services, Inc)


 Posters
Section Chair: Tom Cross (Kaiser Permanente)
 When Simpler is Better – Visualizing Laboratory Data Using “SG  Procedures” Wei Cheng
(Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.)   

Statistical Analysis of Source of Nitrogen in Q-BOP Steel

Arkady Kushnir
(UofU) 

An Unaccusative Categorization of ‘Swarm’ Type Verbs in Spanish: An Application of SAS® to Linguistic Research

Roberto Mayoral Hernandez
(University of Alabama at Birmingham)
Lindsey Chen
(National Taiwan Normal University) 

Create a SAS Data Set Layout from an Excel Document Fast

Ivan Padilla
(CTB McGraw-Hill)   

A Dynamic Way to Manipulate Longitudinal Data with SAS

Nora Ruel
(City of Hope National Cancer Center)
Arthur Li
(City of Hope)

Step your way through Path Analysis

Diana Suhr
(University of Northern Colorado)  

 SAS Essentials Workshop
  Especially designed for novice SAS programmers
Section Chairs: Kirk Paul Lafler  (Software Intelligence Corporation)
  Katie Martin        (UCLA School of Public Health)
Data Step Essentials.....
The Essence of DATA STEP Programming   Arthur Li
(City of Hope) 
An Introduction to SAS Character Functions Ron Cody
Useful SAS Functions....Dates, Statistics, and Beyond Brenda Beaty
(University of Colorado) 
Tap into the Power of Formats Nikki Carroll
(Kaiser Permanente)  
HELP Essentials.....
How to Find Answers: Using SAS Resources Ginger Carey (University of Hawaii)  
Helen Carey   (University of Hawaii)
PROC Step Essentials.....
Demystifying Popular SAS Procedures Lisa Smith
(Los Angeles County Department of Public Health) 
The MEANS/SUMMARY Procedure: Getting Started and Doing More Art Carpenter
(California Occidental Consultants)   
An Essential Step Forward: A bit more advanced.....
The Essentials of Finding the Distinct, Unique, and Duplicate Values in Your Data
 Carter Sevick
(DoD Center for Deployment Health Research)   
Programming Efficiently with Arrays Diana Suhr
(University of Northern Colorado) 
E Pluribus Unum: How to Obtain One Observation from Multiple Observations by Limiting, Reshaping, and Summarizing Data
Author won a Best Contributed Paper Award at WUSS 2007.

Eric Elkin
(ICON Clinical Research)
Essential Hands-on Workshops
A Hands-on Introduction to SAS Programming Casey Cantrell
(Clarion Consulting)  
The Power of the BY Statement Paul Choate
(State of California)   

 Tutorials
Section Chairs: Tyler Smith           (DoD Center for Deployment Health Research)
  Rebecca Ottesen (City of Hope & Cal Polytechnic State University)
Easy Ways to get SAS Enterprise Guide to Send Tables and Graphs to Microsoft Office Suite, Without Writing Code!            
William Benjamin Jr
(Owl Computer Consultancy, LLC)   
Building and Using User Defined Formats Art Carpenter
(California Occidental Consultants)   
PROC REPORT: Compute Block Basics
(Part I – Tutorial) 		 Art Carpenter
(California Occidental Consultants)   
Computing Power and Sample Size Using PROC Power Jimmy Efird
(John A. Burns School of Medicine)   
Quick and Complete Statistical Analyses Using SAS Enterprise Guide George Fernandez
(University of Nevada - Reno)   
A Step-by-Step Guide to Survival Analysis Lida Gharibvand
(University of California Riverside)   
Using Propensity Scores to Adjust for Treatment Selection Bias
  PharmaSUG 2008 Best Paper In Public Health 		 R. Scott Leslie
(MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.)   
Learning When to be Discrete: Continuous vs. Categorical Predictors David Pasta
(Ovation Research Group)   
“Table 1” in Scientific Manuscripts; Using PROC REPORT Carter Sevick
(DoD Center for Deployment Health Research)   
Missing by Design: Questionnaire Skip Logic Kathryn Valdes
(SRI International)   
SAS Fundamentals for Survey Data Processing Renato Villacorte
(Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates)