This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Multi-Objective Programming and Goal Programming: Theory & Appli cations (MOPGP'02) held in Nara, Japan on June 4-7, 2002. Eighty-two people from 16 countries attended the conference and 78 papers (including 9 plenary talks) were presented. MOPGP is an international conference within which researchers and prac titioners can meet and learn from each other about the recent development in multi-objective programming and goal programming. The participants are from different disciplines such as Optimization, Operations Research, Math ematical Programming and Multi-Criteria Decision Aid, whose common in terest is in multi-objective analysis. The first MOPGP Conference was held at Portsmouth, United Kingdom, in 1994. The subsequent conferenes were held at Torremolinos, Spain in 1996, at Quebec City, Canada in 1998, and at Katowice, Poland in 2000. The fifth conference was held at Nara, which was the capital of Japan for more than seventy years in the eighth century. During this Nara period the basis of Japanese society, or culture established itself. Nara is a beautiful place and has a number of historic monuments in the World Heritage List. The members of the International Committee of MOPGP'02 were Dylan Jones, Pekka Korhonen, Carlos Romero, Ralph Steuer and Mehrdad Tamiz.

This book gives the reader an insight into the state of the art in the field of multiobjective (linear, nonlinear and combinatorial) programming, goal programming and multiobjective metaheuristics. The 26 papers describe all relevant trends in this fields of research . They cover a wide range of topics ranging from theoretical investigations to algorithms, dealing with uncertainty, and applications to real world problems such as engineering design, water distribution systems and portfolio selection. The book is based on the papers of the seventh international conference on multiple objective programming and goal programming (MOPGP06).

Most real-life problems involve making decisions to optimally achieve a number of criteria while satisfying some hard or soft constraints. In this book several methods for solving such problems are presented by the leading experts in the area. The book also contains a number of very interesting application papers which demonstrate theoretical modelling, analysing and solution of real-life problems.

Statistical Modeling and Decision Science: Multi-Objective Programming in the USSR provides information pertinent to multi-objective programming that has emerged as an increasingly active area of research in the fields of applied mathematics, operations research, and decision and management science. This book traces and analyzes the development of Soviet multi-objective programming. Organized into 24 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the research institutes most actively involved in multi-objective programming research. This text then presents an analytical framework for grouping and classifying the diverse Soviet methods. Other chapters consider the methods and then evaluated according to the significance and soundness of its basic approach and its kinship to other methods. This book discusses as well some significant Soviet theoretical research and several distinctive approaches proposed by Soviet researchers for comparing the effectiveness of alternative interactive multi-objective programming method. The final chapter deals with distinctive Soviet tendencies in multi-objective research. This book is a valuable resource for economists.

Within the field of multiple criteria decision making, this volume covers the latest advances in multiple objective and goal programming as presented at the 2nd International Conference on Multi-Objective Programming and Goal Programming, Torremolinos, Spain, May 16 - 18, 1996. The book is an undispensable source of the latest research results, presented by the leading experts of the field.

Optimierung mit mehreren Zielen, evolutionäre Algorithmen: Dieses Buch wendet sich vorrangig an Einsteiger, denn es werden kaum Vorkenntnisse vorausgesetzt. Geboten werden alle notwendigen Grundlagen, um die Theorie auf Probleme der Ingenieurtechnik, der Vorhersage und der Planung anzuwenden. Der Autor gibt auch einen Ausblick auf Forschungsaufgaben der Zukunft.

MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS: State of the Art Surveys is the most comprehensive work available to survey the state of the art in MCDA to date. Its 25 chapters are organized in eight parts and are written by 52 international leading experts. Each of these parts covers one of the central streams of multiple criteria decision analysis literature. These literature streams are: MCDA today, Foundations of MCDA, Our Ranking Methods, Multiattribute Utility Theory, Non-Classical MCDA Approaches, Multiobjective Mathematical Programming, Applications, and MCDM Software. The handbook presents the most up-to-date discussions on well-established methodologies and theories in the field, while systematically surveying emerging fields in MCDA such as conjoint measurement, fuzzy preferences, fuzzy integrals, rough sets, etc. MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS: State of the Art Surveys is a valuable reference volume (more than 2000 references) for the field of decision analysis. It provides graduate students, researchers, and practitioners with a sweeping survey of MCDA theory, methodologies, and applications. It is a handbook that is particularly suitable for use in seminars in Decision Analysis, Decision Support, and Decision Theory.

Problems with multiple objectives and criteria are generally known as multiple criteria optimization or multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) problems. So far, these types of problems have typically been modelled and solved by means of linear programming. However, many real-life phenomena are of a nonlinear nature, which is why we need tools for nonlinear programming capable of handling several conflicting or incommensurable objectives. In this case, methods of traditional single objective optimization and linear programming are not enough; we need new ways of thinking, new concepts, and new methods - nonlinear multiobjective optimization. Nonlinear Multiobjective Optimization provides an extensive, up-to-date, self-contained and consistent survey, review of the literature and of the state of the art on nonlinear (deterministic) multiobjective optimization, its methods, its theory and its background. The amount of literature on multiobjective optimization is immense. The treatment in this book is based on approximately 1500 publications in English printed mainly after the year 1980. Problems related to real-life applications often contain irregularities and nonsmoothnesses. The treatment of nondifferentiable multiobjective optimization in the literature is rather rare. For this reason, this book contains material about the possibilities, background, theory and methods of nondifferentiable multiobjective optimization as well. This book is intended for both researchers and students in the areas of (applied) mathematics, engineering, economics, operations research and management science; it is meant for both professionals and practitioners in many different fields of application. The intention has been to provide a consistent summary that may help in selecting an appropriate method for the problem to be solved. It is hoped the extensive bibliography will be of value to researchers.

The book is dedicated to multi-objective methods in decision making. The first part which is devoted to theoretical aspects, covers a broad range of multi-objective methods such as multiple linear programming, vector optimisation, fuzzy goal programming, data envelopment analysis, game theory, and dynamic programming. The reader who is interested in practical applications, will find in the remaining parts a variety of approaches applied in numerous fields including production planning, logistics, marketing, and finance.

It is frequently observed that most decision-making problems involve several objectives, and the aim of the decision makers is to find the best decision by fulfilling the aspiration levels of all the objectives. Multi-objective decision making is especially suitable for the design and planning steps and allows a decision maker to achieve the optimal or aspired goals by considering the various interactions of the given constraints. Multi-Objective Stochastic Programming in Fuzzy Environments discusses optimization problems with fuzzy random variables following several types of probability distributions and different types of fuzzy numbers with different defuzzification processes in probabilistic situations. The content within this publication examines such topics as waste management, agricultural systems, and fuzzy set theory. It is designed for academicians, researchers, and students.