2008 Conference

Conference Content - Section Descriptions

Home
•About NESUG
  • Mission and Services
  • Service Area
  • Affiliated LUGs
•2008 Conference
  • Why attend NESUG
   | Conference FAQs
  • General Conference Info
   | Leadership Team
   | Important Dates
   | Volunteer Opportunities
  • Conference Content
   | Section Descriptions
   | Pre-conference Training
   | Sunday Workshops
  • Conference Registration
   | Registration Fees
   | Student Scholarship Application
   | Registration Form
   | Registration Book
  • Travel Information
   | Hotel Information
   | Tourist Information
  • For Presenters
   | Important Dates
   | Poster Resources
   | Pre Con Trainer Resources
   | Presenter FAQs
  • Corporate Sponsorship
•NESUG Conferences
  • Past Conference Proceedings
•LUG Resource
  • Speaker Sharing
•Contact
  • Executive Committee
  • Request Conference Newsletter
  • LUG Contact Information
  • Privacy Policy

 © Copyright 2008 North East SAS Users Group

Section Descriptions

This year's conference sections will span the range of tasks that SAS performs and offer presenters and attendees a variety of presentation formats. Check out the current presentation schedule.

Administration & Support                               

Coders' Corner

 

Pharmaceuticals, Health Care and Life Sciences

And Now Presenting...

Foundations & Fundamentals

Programming Beyond the Basics

Applications Big & Small                     

Hands-On Workshops             

Posters

 

  Statistics & Analysis  

For more information, please refer to the Leadership Team for each section's contact information.

Administration & Support

The Administration and Support section holds the keys to enjoying a changing world.  Faced with more complexity at work?  Find papers on management (of yourself, other individuals, teams, and processes) as well as tools within SAS software to assist you (the SAS Code Analyzer and Enterprise BI server).  Overwhelmed by new features of SAS?  Learn with us how to use web resources that serve up answers to your questions and connections to the SAS community.  Confused by career choices?  A panel will discuss the ins and outs of consulting.  Feeling out of touch with the newest generation?  Figuring prominently in this section will be students:  you will hear about the SAS in Higher Education program from students who have experienced its benefits. Refresh yourself and your knowledge:  stop in and see what’s happening in the Administration and Support section.

Christopher Bost
MDRC                                   

Judy Loren

Health Dialog Analytic Solutions

Back to top

 

And Now Presenting ...

There are many elegant and creative ways in which we can use SAS to gather and display our data. These methods should be driven by the needs of the end user. As such, we may wish to see data summarized as dashboards for decision-making, colorful graphs for data analysis, or web-based applications for global internet or intranet sharing. This section presents numerous ways to make data more attractive and useful without losing its underlying scientific value. The presentations include the latest developments in SAS/GRAPH, ODS and Tagsets, BI products, SAS Enterprise Guide, and the DOCUMENT procedure, Report optimization using various standard procedures such as the REPORT or TABULATE procedures, and GMAP procedure for geographical mapping are also offered, Finally, we delve into the latest methods to output data using SAS web publishing, exporting to Microsoft Office and PDF formats.

John Cohen
AstraZeneca LP
Karen LaPann
ViroPharma

Back to top

 

Applications Big and Small

Problem solved, project goal achieved, real-life challenge met, productivity boosted, the tedium of repetitive tasks avoided -- all with the help of those handy SAS features or products.  In this section, we share stories about the development and implementation of solutions.  Some are small stories (4,000 reports delivered 3 ways, implementing business intelligence applications, and simplifying delivered reports using graphics).  Other presentations share how to adapt applications to take advantage of the SAS9 Paradigm and offer guidance for application developers (Boot Camp for SAS Programmers).  Last, there are presentations that touch subjects that can stymie application developers (handling large data sets, killing runaway Unix processes, and setting up applications via Windows batch processes).  Through these presentations, Applications Big and Small will emphasize the use of SAS to accomplish practical tasks. 

Rick Andrews

Reden & Anders

Michael Davis
Health Market Science

Back to top

 

Coders' Corner

Are you a savvy SAS user? Whether you are a novice, a seasoned programmer or somewhere in between, we have tips, tricks or novel ways of solving programming problems for you.

So - let's have some fun!  Coders’ Corner presentations are short, sweet and “to the point” sessions that cover useful nuggets of programming.  This is the perfect section to pick up that technique that just makes your job easier … or more fun!  Coders’ Corner papers are relatively short and the pace is rapid. The sessions will be filled with information on macros, procedures, functions, ODS, and more.

This year we will also feature a panel discussion on “Dataset Merge vs. Proc SQL Join” and a segment of even shorter presentations in the format of “Two-Minute Tech Tips”.  There is sure to be something in Coders’ Corner that you will find useful.
Lisa Eckler
Lisa Eckler Consulting
Dalia Kahane
Westat

Back to top

 

Foundations and Fundamentals

A proficient user of the SAS system must first master the basics.  The Foundations and Fundamentals section is devoted to tutorial-style presentations that cover the building blocks within individual SAS components.  From Base SAS to Enterprise Guide, Macros to Means, Merge to SQL joins, the Foundations and Fundamentals papers review the essentials.  Presentations will cover such topics as reading difficult dates, data manipulation, various procedures, best practices and what’s new in 9.2.  The goals will be to introduce core features and provide essential review.  Papers are designed for new users of the SAS system, as well as tutorials designed for experienced users who are moving into new or unfamiliar areas within the SAS environment.

Ken Borowiak
PPD, Inc.
Gary McQuown
Data and Analytic Solutions, Inc.

Back to top

 

Hands-on Workshops

Hands-On Workshops allow attendees to reinforce their understanding of presentation content by accompanying the instructor on a workshop computer.  This section has something for just about everyone, including workshops on ODS, PROC SQL, graphics, Web Report Studio, SAS® Data Quality Server, “the Magnificent DOW-loop DATA step structure,” and creating multi-sheet Microsoft Excel workbooks.  Hands-On Workshops are designed to accommodate attendees at both the beginning and intermediate levels and run for about 90 minutes, enough time to offer some depth of coverage on the presentation topic. Computers will be provided for the attendees to follow the instructor's examples and to run them on their own.

Jonas Bilenas
JP Morgan Chase Bank                      
Bob Schechter
Octagon Research Solutions, Inc.

Back to top

 

Pharmaceuticals, Health Care, and Life Sciences

In the Pharmaceutical world, SAS Software has found a home in every phase of the Drug Development Life Cycle.  SAS also services the diverse Health Care industries with an ever expanding menu of targeted solutions and data mining tools.  But even as SAS has increased its offerings of vertical market products and services, Base SAS Software has remained a robust, invaluable component within analytical processes throughout the business of the Life Sciences.  Today, both researchers and decision makers are likely to use SAS technologies wherever there is a need to shape data into answers.  This section is devoted to presentations describing the role SAS plays among the best practices and techniques within the Pharmaceutical, Health Care and Life Sciences industries.  Topics include various facets of clinical trial data management such as data verification, CDISC derivations, summary reporting and graphics, as well as communication.  Also present are papers that describe quality of treatment analysis and using electronic medical record (EMR) data.  Specific SAS tools or components in the context of drug development will also be discussed.  Our scope may be wide ranging, but presentations will find common ground as descriptions of problem solving while using SAS software within the Life Science Industries as well as related research.

Emmy Pahmer

MDS Pharma Services

Michael Tomb

Informatica ECS, Inc.

Back to top

 

Programming Beyond the Basics

So you've got those key SAS building blocks under your belt? Ready to take your SAS toolkit to the next level? Presentations in this section will allow you to build on your existing SAS skills and learn new techniques and tools - to go beyond the basics! Topics can include working with Microsoft products such as Excel, using ODS with DATA steps, advanced DATA step manipulation or SQL techniques, taking advantage of parallel processors, hashing, macros, and working with external databases of various flavors and more. Presentations focusing on efficiency techniques for large datasets or the ins and outs of using SAS across different platforms could be presented along with information on SAS 9.2. So join us to expand your SAS knowledge beyond the basics.

Andy Kuligowski

Nielsen Media Research

Lisa Pyle
Merck & Co., Inc.

Back to top


Posters

In the Posters section, the vehicle of communication is a hard-copy display designed to catch viewers’ fancy and provide a visually pleasing and informative message.  Presenters can offer fairly complex visual concepts for study, and viewers can discuss these concepts without disturbing the flow of a presentation.  Viewers will have the opportunity to examine the material at their own pace and revisit it a number of times during the conference, as these displays will be on view throughout the conference from Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning.  In addition, presenters will be available at their displays for an hour during the conference to explain their work and answer questions.

The subject matter of poster presentations is varied and that is one thing that makes a tour of them so interesting.  Some displays may be enhanced with computer demonstrations of applications and multimedia such as video, with the proviso that the equipment and security are the presenter's responsibility.  Viewers will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite posters and results will be posted on Wednesday.  Three “People’s Choice” awards will be presented.

Louise Hadden
Abt Associates Inc.

James Shields

IDEXX Labs

Back to top

 

Statistics and Analysis

The Statistics and Analysis section includes papers that cover a wide range of uses of SAS for statistics and data analysis.  Papers either describe the use of SAS-provided procedures and products or present user-crafted implementations built with the DATA step, the IML procedure, SAS/GRAPH, SAS Macros, or similar tools.  Fundamental statistical methods and statistical applications in many disciplines, industries, or organizational functions are presented, including papers focused in business and marketing, survey research, and healthcare.

Steve Lalonde
Rochester Institute of Technology
Peter Flom
Brain Scope

Back to top