Achieving microaggregation for secure statistical databases using fixed-structure partitioning-based learning automata

We consider the microaggregation problem (MAP) that involves partitioning a set of individual records in a microdata file into a number of mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups. This problem, which seeks for the best partition of the microdata file, is known to be NP-hard and has been tackled using many heuristic solutions. In this paper, we present the first reported fixed-structure-stochastic-automata -based solution to this problem. The newly proposed method leads to a lower value of the information loss (IL), obtains a better tradeoff between the IL and the disclosure risk (DR) when compared with state-of-the-art methods, and leads to a superior value of the scoring index, which is a criterion involving a combination of the IL and the DR. The scheme has been implemented, tested, and evaluated for different real-life and simulated data sets. The results clearly demonstrate the applicability of learning automata to the MAP and its ability to yield a solution that obtains the best tradeoff between IL and DR when compared with the state of the art

On utilizing an enhanced object partitioning scheme to optimize self-organizing lists-on-lists

Author's accepted manuscript.This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Evolving Systems. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12530-020-09327-4.acceptedVersio

Learning Automata-Based Object Partitioning with Pre-Specified Cardinalities

Master's thesis in Information- and communication technology (IKT591)The Object Migrating Automata (OMA) has been used as a powerful AI-based tool to resolve real-life partitioning problems. Apart from its original version, variants and enhancements that invoke the pursuit concept of Learning Automata, and the phenomena of transitivity, have more recently been used to improve its power. The single major handicap that it possesses is the fact that the number of the objects in each partition must be equal. This thesis deals with the task of relaxing this constraint. Thus, in this thesis, we will consider the problem of designing OMA-based schemes when the number of the objects can be unequal, but prespecified. By opening ourselves to this less-constrained version, we encounter a few problems that deal with the implementation of the inter-partition migration of the objects. This thesis considers how these problems can be solved, and in essence, presents the design, implementation and testing of two OMA-based methods and all its variants, that include the pursuit and transitivity phenomena