In the last decades, algorithmic advances as well as hardware and software improvements have provided an excellent environment to create and develop solving methods to hard optimization problems. Modern exact and heuristic techniques are dramatically enhancing our ability to solve significant practical problems. This monograph sets out state-of-the-art methodologies for solving combinatorial optimization problems, illustrating them with two well-known problems. This second edition of the book extends the first one by adding to the ‘linear ordering problem’ (LOP), included in the first edition, the ‘maximum diversity problem’ (MDP). In this way, we provide the reader with the background, elements and strategies to tackle a wide range of different combinatorial optimization problems. The exact and heuristic techniques outlined in these pages can be put to use in any number of combinatorial optimization problems. While the authors employ the LOP and the MDP to illustrate cutting-edge optimization technologies, the book is also a tutorial on how to design effective and successful implementations of exact and heuristic procedures alike. This monograph provides the basic principles and fundamental ideas that will enable students and practitioners to create valuable applications based on both exact and heuristic technologies. Specifically, it is aimed at engineers, scientists, operations researchers, and other applications specialists who are looking for the most appropriate and recent optimization tools to solve particular problems. The book provides a broad spectrum of advances in search strategies with a focus on its algorithmic and computational aspects.

Combinatorial (or discrete) optimization is one of the most active fields in the interface of operations research, computer science, and applied math ematics. Combinatorial optimization problems arise in various applications, including communications network design, VLSI design, machine vision, air line crew scheduling, corporate planning, computer-aided design and man ufacturing, database query design, cellular telephone frequency assignment, constraint directed reasoning, and computational biology. Furthermore, combinatorial optimization problems occur in many diverse areas such as linear and integer programming, graph theory, artificial intelligence, and number theory. All these problems, when formulated mathematically as the minimization or maximization of a certain function defined on some domain, have a commonality of discreteness. Historically, combinatorial optimization starts with linear programming. Linear programming has an entire range of important applications including production planning and distribution, personnel assignment, finance, alloca tion of economic resources, circuit simulation, and control systems. Leonid Kantorovich and Tjalling Koopmans received the Nobel Prize (1975) for their work on the optimal allocation of resources. Two important discover ies, the ellipsoid method (1979) and interior point approaches (1984) both provide polynomial time algorithms for linear programming. These algo rithms have had a profound effect in combinatorial optimization. Many polynomial-time solvable combinatorial optimization problems are special cases of linear programming (e.g. matching and maximum flow). In addi tion, linear programming relaxations are often the basis for many approxi mation algorithms for solving NP-hard problems (e.g. dual heuristics).

The book, presenting the proceedings of the 2018 Future Technologies Conference (FTC 2018), is a remarkable collection of chapters covering a wide range of topics, including, but not limited to computing, electronics, artificial intelligence, robotics, security and communications and their real-world applications. The conference attracted a total of 503 submissions from pioneering researchers, scientists, industrial engineers, and students from all over the world. After a double-blind peer review process, 173 submissions (including 6 poster papers) have been selected to be included in these proceedings. FTC 2018 successfully brought together technology geniuses in one venue to not only present breakthrough research in future technologies but to also promote practicality and applications and an intra- and inter-field exchange of ideas. In the future, computing technologies will play a very important role in the convergence of computing, communication, and all other computational sciences and applications. And as a result it will also influence the future of science, engineering, industry, business, law, politics, culture, and medicine. Providing state-of-the-art intelligent methods and techniques for solving real-world problems, as well as a vision of the future research, this book is a valuable resource for all those interested in this area.

Energy has been an inevitable component of human lives for decades. Recent rapid developments in the area require analyzing energy systems not as independent components but rather as connected interdependent networks. The Handbook of Networks in Power Systems includes the state-of-the-art developments that occurred in the power systems networks, in particular gas, electricity, liquid fuels, freight networks, as well as their interactions. The book is separated into two volumes with three sections, where one scientific paper or more are included to cover most important areas of networks in power systems. The first volume covers topics arising in electricity network, in particular electricity markets, smart grid, network expansion, as well as risk management. The second volume presents problems arising in gas networks; such as scheduling and planning of natural gas systems, pricing, as well as optimal location of gas supply units. In addition, the second volume covers the topics of interactions between energy networks. Each subject is identified following the activity on the domain and the recognition of each subject as an area of research. The scientific papers are authored by world specialists on the domain and present either state-of-the-arts reviews or scientific developments.

The two-volume set LNCS 3561 and LNCS 3562 constitute the refereed proceedings of the First International Work-Conference on the Interplay between Natural and Artificial Computation, IWINAC 2005, held in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain in June 2005. The 118 revised papers presented are thematically divided into two volumes; the first includes all the contributions mainly related with the methodological, conceptual, formal, and experimental developments in the fields of Neurophysiology and cognitive science. The second volume collects the papers related with bioinspired programming strategies and all the contributions related with the computational solutions to engineering problems in different application domains.

This open access book demonstrates all the steps required to design heuristic algorithms for difficult optimization. The classic problem of the travelling salesman is used as a common thread to illustrate all the techniques discussed. This problem is ideal for introducing readers to the subject because it is very intuitive and its solutions can be graphically represented. The book features a wealth of illustrations that allow the concepts to be understood at a glance. The book approaches the main metaheuristics from a new angle, deconstructing them into a few key concepts presented in separate chapters: construction, improvement, decomposition, randomization and learning methods. Each metaheuristic can then be presented in simplified form as a combination of these concepts. This approach avoids giving the impression that metaheuristics is a non-formal discipline, a kind of cloud sculpture. Moreover, it provides concrete applications of the travelling salesman problem, which illustrate in just a few lines of code how to design a new heuristic and remove all ambiguities left by a general framework. Two chapters reviewing the basics of combinatorial optimization and complexity theory make the book self-contained. As such, even readers with a very limited background in the field will be able to follow all the content.

The satisfiability (SAT) problem is central in mathematical logic, computing theory, and many industrial applications. There has been a strong relationship between the theory, the algorithms, and the applications of the SAT problem. This book aims to bring together work by the best theorists, algorithmists, and practitioners working on the sat problem and on industrial applications, as well as to enhance the interaction between the three research groups. The book features the applications of theoretical/algorithmic results to practical problems and presents practical examples for theoretical/algoritmic study. Major topics covered in the book include practical and industial SAT problems and benchmarks, significant case studies and applications of the SAT problem and SAT algorithms, new algorithms and improved techniques for satisfiability testing, specific data structures and implementation details of the SAT algorithms, and the theoretical study of the SAT problem and SAT algorithms.

The purpose of a DIMACS Challenge is to encourage and coordinate research in the experimental analysis of algorithms. The First DIMACS Challenge encouraged experimental work in the area of network flow and matchings. This Second DIMACS Challenge, on which this volume is based, took place in conjunction with the DIMACS Special Year on Combinatorial Optimization. Addressed here are three difficult combinatorial optimization problems: finding cliques in a graph, colouring the vertices of a graph, and solving instances of the satisfiability problem. These problems were chosen both for their practical interest and because of their theoretical intractability.

5G Networks: Planning, Design and Optimization presents practical methods and algorithms for the design of 5G Networks, covering issues ranging from network resilience to how Big Data analytics can used in network design optimization. The book addresses 5G optimization issues that are data driven, high dimensional and clustered. The reader will learn: - 5G concepts, how they are linked and their effect on the architecture of a 5G network - Models of 5G at a network level, including economic aspects of operating a network - The economic implications of scale and service diversity, and the incentive for optimal design and operational strategies - Network topologies from a transport to a cloud perspective - Theoretic foundations for network design and network optimization - Algorithms for practical design and optimization of 5G subsystems based on live network projects - Efficient Bayesian methods for network analytics - The trade-off and multi-objective character of QoS management and cost saving - Practical traffic and resilience measurement and QoS supervision - Frameworks for performance analytics and network control This book will be an invaluable resource for telecom operators and service providers, university researchers, graduate students and network planners interested in practical methods for optimizing networks for large performance improvements and cost savings. Christofer Larsson works as an independent researcher and consultant in network design traffic engineering, network performance evaluation and optimization. - 5G concepts, how they are linked and their effect on the architecture of a 5G network - Models of 5G at a network level, including economic aspects of operating a network - The economic implications of scale and service diversity, and the incentive for optimal design and operational strategies - Network topologies from a transport to a cloud perspective - Theoretic foundations for network design and network optimization - Algorithms for practical design and optimization of 5G subsystems based on live network projects - Efficient Bayesian methods for network analytics - The trade-off and multi-objective character of QoS management and cost saving - Practical traffic and resilience measurement and QoS supervision - Frameworks for performance analytics and network control

The book includes papers on a wide range of emerging research topics spanning theory, systems and applications of computing and communication technologies viz. Nonlinear Dynamics in Cryptography, Discrete domain Swarm Robotics, Machine Learning, Facility Layout Problem, Crowdfunding Projects, Deep Learning, MHD Nanofluid Flow, Medical Diagnostics, Human Computer Interface, Social Networking, System Performance, Wireless Sensor Networks, Cognitive Radio Networks, Antenna Design etc.; presented at the 11th International Conference on Advanced Computing and Communications Technologies (11th ICACCT 2018) held on 17-18 February, 2018 at Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology, Panipat, India.