Iranian Society of Cryptology The ISC International Journal of Information Security 2008-2045 7 1 2015 01 01 A novel local search method for microaggregation 15 26 39202 10.22042/isecure.2015.7.1.3 EN R. Mortazavi S. Jalili 0000-0002-4333-3097 Journal Article 2015 01 07 In this paper, we propose an effective microaggregation algorithm to produce a more useful protected data for publishing. Microaggregation is mapped to a clustering problem with known minimum and maximum group size constraints. In this scheme, the goal is to cluster <em>n</em> records into groups of at least <em>k</em> and at most 2<em>k</em>_1 records, such that the sum of the within-group squared error (SSE) is minimized. We propose a local search algorithm which iteratively satisfies the constraints of the optimal solution of the problem. The algorithm solves the problem in <em>O (n²)</em> time. Experimental results on real and synthetic data sets with different distributions demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in producing useful protected data sets. https://www.isecure-journal.com/article_39202_2836af9c512d8f61a77e1cc36eb7c0c1.pdf