Mark your calendar now for the 2006 NESUG Annual Conference – September 17 – 20 in historic Philadelphia. We’re planning 2-1/2 days jam-packed with presentations and hands-on workshops covering:

Expert SAS users will be on hand to help you solve programming problems, demonstrate software features and gather information on your needs for future software releases. We’ll also be offering optional in-depth learning opportunities at Pre- Conference Training Sessions and Sunday Workshops. And as always, there will be networking events for meeting, greeting and getting to know your SAS colleagues.

It’s the ultimate SAS learning experience – and, at just $375 per person (early registration), the best value in SAS education! Online registration is open now!

NESUG presentations, workshops and training seminars offer practical information you can put to use on the job. You’ll return to work with improved skills and the latest techniques SAS has to offer.

Philadelphia in September is a sightseer’s paradise. Daytime temperatures should be in the high 60s to low 70s, and the Center City location is within easy walking distance of many attractions. You’ll want to plan a few extra days before or after the conference to visit Independence Hall, the Franklin Institute, museums, art galleries and the bustling Reading Terminal market. And don’t forget to sample the best of Philadelphia cuisine, from soft pretzels and cheese steaks to five-star dining!

We encourage conference attendees to stay at our host hotel, the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center (formerly the Wyndham Philadelphia). Not only is it a great venue that’s central to great tourist attractions, the Sheraton has put together a great package of benefits for NESUG attendees:

Staying at the host hotel also reduces the cost to NESUG for meeting rooms and refreshments – cost reductions that enable us to keep conference registration fees as low as possible. So the more people who stay at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center, the better it is for everyone!

Make your hotel reservations and register for NESUG 2006 right away. We look forward to seeing you in September!

Attendees consistently rate the NESUG conference as one of the best values in SAS training. Here’s what one attendee had to say about the 2005 conference:

“Any given programmer can walk away knowing they learned at least SOMETHING that they are likely to use in their own SAS experience.”

A common task when using SAS/STAT procedures is to recode variable values into dummy variables, that is, variables that take on a value of either 1 or 0. The tried and true method is an IF-THEN-ELSE statement. For example...

if income ge 100000 then dummy_inc = 1; else dummy_inc = 0;

That method is fine, but if you are recoding a number if variables, it gets a bit tedious. An alternative is...

dummy_inc = (income ge 100000);

SAS evaluates the expression within the parentheses. If it is TRUE, the value of the dummy variable is 1, otherwise it is 0. The expression can be compound...

dummy_inc = (income ge 100000 and zip eq 10001);

or...

dummy_inc = (income ge 100000 or cars_owned ge 10);

The compound expression within the parentheses will either be TRUE or FALSE and the dummy variable will be 1 or 0.

Note from Daphne and Paul: Thanks to Mike, a frequent contributor to NESUG, for this great Tech Note! We will include additional interesting and useful technical notes from past conferences in future issues of this newsletter.