This blog, “From A Logical Point of View”, is not supposed to be owned by a logician. Actually, the book, From A Logical Point of View, is a collection of logical and philosophical essays by W.V.Quine(1908-2000), an American philosopher and mathematician.

A story about this book. From A Logical Point of View, was a calypso song by Robert Mitchum, an US actor, composer and singer. Quine enjoyed this music and used it as his new book, which is Quine’s best seller. Now I love this book and give the name to my blog from a logical point of view^.

(Note: All the followings are tested on Windows XP environment.)

0. Install Oracle Database 10g Express Edition

Fast (and free) to download, easy to deploy and simple to admin–for learning and testing purpose, Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Oracle Database XE, a mini version of Oracle Database 10g Release 2) are strongly recommended:

0.1 Download it at its homepage(206MB);

0.2 Install it following default settings;

0.3 Unlock accounts for HR and SCOTT. In a windows DOS prompt, using the following scripts:

sqlplus sys/YourSysPassword as sysdba

alter user HR account unlock

alter user HR identified by YourHRPassword

alter user SCOTT account unlock

alter user SCOTT identified by TIGER

Or you can accomplish these tasks within the Oracle web application:

http://localhost:8081/apex

1. Connect Oracle using SAS libname engine

libname SCOTT oracle user=”SCOTT” password=”TIGER” path=’xe’ ;

Note: xe is the default path for Oracle Database XE.

2. Connect Oracle using SQL Procedure Pass-Through Facility

proc sql ;
connect to oracle as orcl
(user=”SCOTT” password=”TIGER” path=’xe’);

select *
from connection to orcl

(

SELECT …

) ;

disconnect from orcl;

quit;

Note: 1) In this approach, Oracle, instead of SAS, processes the SQL statement (i.e., you use the more powerful and flexible Oracle SQL syntax instead of SAS Proc SQL procedure for querying. For more, see SAS Doc).

2) Your Oracle SQL codes should be placed in the RED blocks, and end without a semicolon(;):

select *

from emp

3) Only basic Oracle SQL statements (select, create table, . . .)can pass through this facility.

3. Load SAS datasets to Oracle database

proc copy in=sashelp
out=scott;
select class;
run;

4. Misc: Some differences between Oracle SQL and SAS Proc SQL

4.1 Table aliases

Oracle: from employees a;

SAS: from employees a; or

from employees as a;

4.2 Column aliases

Oracle: don’t use single quotation marks(‘’).

select job_id as job, job_id job, job_id as “job” , job_id as ‘job’

SAS:

select job_id as job, job_id “job” , job_id ‘job’, job_id job

4.3 Literal Character Strings

Oracle: Date and character literal values must be enclosed within single quotation marks(‘’).

SAS: Use both single and double quotation marks.

4.4 Order the null value

Oracle: Null values are displayed last for ascending sequences and first for descending sequences.

SAS: Null values are displayed first for ascending sequences and last for descending sequences.

4.5 Nesting Group Functions

select max(avg(salary))
from employees
group by department_id

SAS log:

ERROR: Summary functions nested in this way are not supported.

Optional approach for SAS:

select max(avg) as max
from(
select avg(salary) as avg
from employees
group by department_id )

4.6 row number(_n_)

Oracle:

select rownum
from employees

SAS:

select monotonic()
from employees

Note: monotonic() is an undocumented function of SAS, seehttp://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi29/040-29.pdf

1. SAS Books Catalog(Jan, 2009)
2. Data Mining Software 2009: Succesul Analyses at Affordable Prices(Nov. 2008, by mayato)

1. Basel Committee on Banking Supervision(Jan, 2009). Guidelines for computing capital for incremental default risk in the trading book. Consultative document. January.
2. IRC Comments by RiskMetrics

see, http://support.sas.com/kb/26/134.html

• Slider chart indicator:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Slider chart dashboard:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Bullet graph indicator:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Bullet graph dashboard:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Dial meter indicator:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Dial meter dashboard:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Bar chart indicator:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Bar chart dashboard:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Telesales dashboard:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version
• Web marketing analysis dashboard:
  • SAS program version
  • stored process version
  • portlet version

You would also like, Santa’s Dashboard:
http://jiangtanghu.blogspot.com/2008/12/santa-and-sas-again-santa-dashboard.html

There are some new financial functions in SAS9.2 Base, including 8 options pricing functions(formerly in SAS Risk Dimension). These functions can compute the price of both call and put options on different underlying assets (stock, futures, currency, and exchange asset), using the following models respectively:

• Black-Scholes model，the traditional stock options pricing model, see Fischer Black and Myron Scholes (1973) ;

• Black model，extension of Black-Scholes model on futures option (also called Black-76 model)，see Fischer Black(1976);

• Garman-Kohlhagen model，pricing model on foreign currency options，see Mark Garman and Steven Kohlhagen(1983) ;

• Margrabe model，on exchange options，see William Margrabe(1978).

• BLACKCLPRC: calculates the call price for European options on futures, based on the Black model.

• BLACKPTPRC: calculates the put price for European options on futures, based on the Black model.

• BLKSHCLPRT: calculates the call price for European options, based on the Black-Scholes model.

• BLKSHPTPRT: calculates the put price for European options, based on the Black-Scholes model.

• GARKHCLPRC: calculates the call price for European options on currencies, based on the Garman-Kohlhagen model.

• GARKHPTPRC: calculates the put price for European options on currencies, based on the Garman-Kohlhagen model.

• MARGRCLPRC: calculates the call price for European options on exchange assets, based on the Margrabe model.

• MARGRPTPRC: calculates the put price for European options on exchange assets, based on the Margrabe model.

For more，see SAS9.2 online help，Functions and CALL Routines by Category: Financial：
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/59540/HTML/default/a000245860.htm

Note: A good web site for options pricing with different models, http://www.montegodata.co.uk/

SAS and Teradata Partnership: Press

1. Leading Companies See Value in SAS and Teradata Partnership
2. SAS and Teradata Unveil Advantage Program to Bring Powerful In-Database Solutions and Services to Customers
3. SAS and Teradata Enter into Strategic Partnership
   

In BI industry, the pure players such as SAS, Teradata and Microstrategy, need to demonstrate their indispensable values against the megavendors, IBM (acquired Cognos), SAP (acquired Business Object), Oracle (acquired Hyperion) and Microsoft. Teradata is solely focused on enterprise data warehouse. SAS, dominating in business analytics (e.g. advanced statistics and data mining), will check and balance the BI industry due to the private-hold structure. SAS and Teradata Advantage Program partnership, includes wide business lines, such as Analytics, AML (Anti-Money Laundering), Credit Risk, Enterprise Intelligence and Optimization Services. I think It’s a effective way to learn from each other in mutual emulation and counterbalance the concentration market.

(santaDashBoard.png, With permission by Mr. Robert Allison)

Merry Christmas again. SAS marketing staff started up an interesting Christmas campaign on how Santa operates his workshop. Here is another wonderful work about Santa’s Dashboard, created by SAS senior R&D staff, Robert Allison.

Robert is a master of graphics and visualization. You can view his SAS/Graph examples in the following link:

http://robslink.com/SAS/Home.htm

1. The State of Financial Engineering
2. Ponzi Scheme Returns: SEC Charges Bernard L. Madoff for Multi-Billion Dollar Ponzi Scheme
3. WolfenSAS: A PC Game written by SAS Code

How to know the boys and girls’ real demands around the world? and how to predict their demands in next Christmas?

How to purchase toys and goodies with a balance of costs and profits? and how to deliver them more efficiently?

There are lots of questions in the list of Santa, CEO of Santa’s Workshop. SAS’s marketing staff held a very creative champion for the coming Christmas. You can watch the interview with Santa in youtube.com, or read the success story about Santa, Santa’s Secret: Magic? No. It’s SAS(R) Business Analytics.

Merry Christmas.

In the latest post, What Makes a Good Business Analyst?, Rajan Chandras cites some soft items from Forrester’s Business Analyst Assessment Workbook:

• Ability to think abstractly, identify patterns, and generate ideas and solutions
• Understanding of when and how to escalate issues or needs
• Understanding of and ability to delivery the appropriate level of detail needed for each task
• Interest in exploring and understanding new concepts and topic areas
• Emotionally invested in the work
• Ability to learn by shadowing stakeholders
• Ability to clearly articulate technology in terms stakeholders can understand
• Understanding of the organizational culture and its impact on processes and projects (this one seems obvious, but the latter phrase is more profound than might seem at first glance)
• Ability to drive a decision analysis and selection process
• Ability to recognize patterns in requirements and categorize them appropriately

What’s more, there are some suggestions by Rajan Chandras himself:

• Know the organization’s external environment: its competitive position, current state of the industry, geographical & social factors, etc.
• Know the organization’s internal environment: its financial position, organization culture, IT maturity, etc.
• Adapt to the needs (your language, dress etc.), but be yourself. Imperfect, yet genuine, is fine; falsity comes through easily, and will destroy your credibility in no time.

No doubt, no boss can reject such a perfect analyst. But I’m afraid these standards are suitable for every professionals. That is to say, they create a model to explain everything. It is too universal to be served as a good filter to select the most proper analysts. She or he may more marketable in any other business line.

Data Mining in Stock Market? Is it crazy? or is it just a hopeless try? Every mentor in mathematics and finance educates us that the stock market is too chaotic and sentimental to use mathematical models. Most of all gift rock scientists are concentrated in the study of interest of rates and fixed income securities. It sounds profitable to use mathematical and statistical models to predict the price of stock, but there are little successfull stories.

I know I might hold some academic doctrines, so I have interest to monitor any effort to try to forecast stock prices using data mining techniques. Some links from a popular data mining blog , Data Mining Research, are listed as follows:

• Stock Prediction using Decision Tree
• Stock Picking using Data Mining: Parameter Tuning