Conditions for swappability of records in a microdata set when some marginals are fixed

We consider swapping of two records in a microdata set for the purpose of disclosure control. We give some necessary and sufficient conditions that some observations can be swapped between two records under the restriction that a given set of marginals are fixed. We also give an algorithm to find another record for swapping if one wants to swap out some observations from a particular record. Our result has a close connection to the construction of Markov bases for contingency tables with given marginals

Minimal and minimal invariant Markov bases of decomposable models for contingency tables

We study Markov bases of decomposable graphical models consisting of primitive moves (i.e., square-free moves of degree two) by determining the structure of fibers of sample size two. We show that the number of elements of fibers of sample size two are powers of two and we characterize primitive moves in Markov bases in terms of connected components of induced subgraphs of the independence graph of a hierarchical model. This allows us to derive a complete description of minimal Markov bases and minimal invariant Markov bases for decomposable models.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/09-BEJ207 the Bernoulli (http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm