Census Bureau

SET-COVERING AND EDITING DISCRETE DATA

William E. Winkler*, bwinkler@census.gov

KEY WORDS:integer programming, set covering, optimization

ABSTRACT

This paper describes new set covering algorithms associated with the DISCRETE edit system. DISCRETE is based on the Fellegi-Holt model (JASA 1976) of editing. A new implicit-edit generation algorithm replaces algorithms of Garfinkel, Kunnathur, and Liepins (Operations Research 1986) and Winkler (1995). The new set-covering algorithms correctly generate implicit edits for large subclasses and reduce computation during implicit-edit generation by as much as two orders of magnitude.