National Institute of Statistical Sciences

1. GEOGRAPHICAL AGGREGATION: The NASS prototype is substantially complete. The target date for final completion remains 8/31/00. A new data structure has been created, which may speed up substantially the simulated annealing algorithms; this is being investigated currently.
   
   
2. STATISTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF GEOGRAPHICAL AGGREGATION. The detailed study is almost complete. A manuscript "Analysis of Aggregated Data in Survey Sampling, with Application to Fertilizer/Pesticide Usage Surveys" is in preparation.
   
   
3. TABLE SERVERS. Karen Brady's survey and analysis of methods for assessing disclosure risk associated with cross-tabulations from contingency tables is continuing, now with the regular participation of Alan Saalfeld (Ohio State).
   
   
4. MANUSCRIPTS. The following papers have been completed:
   
   
   • Bounds for Cell Entries in Contingency Tables Given Marginal Totals and Decomposable Graphs
     Adrian Dobra and Stephen E. Fienberg
     Submitted to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
     
     
   • Uniqueness and Disclosure Risk: Urn Models and Simulation
     Stephen E. Fienberg and Udi Makov
     Submitted to ISBA 2000 Proceedings
     
     
   • Bayesian Insights on Disclosure Limitation: Mask or Impute?
     George Duncan and Sallie Keller-McNulty
     Submitted to ISBA 2000 Proceedings
     
     
   • Confidentiality and Data Protection through Disclosure Limitation: Evolving Principles and Technical Advances
     Stephen E. Fienberg
     Submitted to IAOS Conference in Montreux, September, 2000, on "Statistics, Development, and Human Rights"
     
     
   • Web-Based Systems that Disseminate Information from Data But Preserve Confidentiality
     Alan F. Karr, Jaeyong Lee, Ashish Sanil, Joel Hernandez, Sousan Karimi and Karen Littwin
     Submitted to the February, 2001, IEEE Computer special issue on digital government
     
     
   Copies will be available on the project Web site shortly.
   
   
5. JSM TALKS. Talks on project activities include:
   • "Using the Web to Disseminate Information but Preserve Confidentiality of Data"
     Ashish Sanil
     Wednesday, August 16, 2:00 PM
     (NISS Session on Statistics and Information Technology)
     
     
   • "The NISS Digital Government Project"
     Alan F. Karr
     Thursday, August 17, 10:00 AM
     (Session on Digital Government)