With the advent of powerful computers and novel mathematical programming techniques, the multidisciplinary field of optimization has advanced to the stage that quite complicated systems can be addressed. The conference was organized to provide a platform for the exchange of new ideas and information and for identifying needs for future research. The contributions covered both theoretical techniques and a rich variety of case studies to which optimization can be usefully applied.

During the last three decades, breakthroughs in computer technology have made a tremendous impact on optimization. In particular, parallel computing has made it possible to solve larger and computationally more difficult prob lems. This volume contains mainly lecture notes from a Nordic Summer School held at the Linkoping Institute of Technology, Sweden in August 1995. In order to make the book more complete, a few authors were invited to contribute chapters that were not part of the course on this first occasion. The purpose of this Nordic course in advanced studies was three-fold. One goal was to introduce the students to the new achievements in a new and very active field, bring them close to world leading researchers, and strengthen their competence in an area with internationally explosive rate of growth. A second goal was to strengthen the bonds between students from different Nordic countries, and to encourage collaboration and joint research ventures over the borders. In this respect, the course built further on the achievements of the "Nordic Network in Mathematical Programming" , which has been running during the last three years with the support ofthe Nordic Council for Advanced Studies (NorFA). The final goal was to produce literature on the particular subject, which would be available to both the participating students and to the students of the "next generation" .

This proceedings volume contains 55 research and expository articles on a wide range of currently active and interesting areas in pure and applied mathematics. The research articles report on the current research accomplishments and the significance of the results. Every expository article aims to make the subject interesting by including the state of the subject, description and motivation of the problems, the relevance of the results, and open problems for future research directions. This book serves as a good reference not only for researchers but also for graduate students.

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.

A unified view of metaheuristics This book provides a complete background on metaheuristics and shows readers how to design and implement efficient algorithms to solve complex optimization problems across a diverse range of applications, from networking and bioinformatics to engineering design, routing, and scheduling. It presents the main design questions for all families of metaheuristics and clearly illustrates how to implement the algorithms under a software framework to reuse both the design and code. Throughout the book, the key search components of metaheuristics are considered as a toolbox for: Designing efficient metaheuristics (e.g. local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm optimization, scatter search, ant colonies, bee colonies, artificial immune systems) for optimization problems Designing efficient metaheuristics for multi-objective optimization problems Designing hybrid, parallel, and distributed metaheuristics Implementing metaheuristics on sequential and parallel machines Using many case studies and treating design and implementation independently, this book gives readers the skills necessary to solve large-scale optimization problems quickly and efficiently. It is a valuable reference for practicing engineers and researchers from diverse areas dealing with optimization or machine learning; and graduate students in computer science, operations research, control, engineering, business and management, and applied mathematics.

This handbook for the Methodology of Societal Complexity describes the theoretical development of the field and lays the foundation for the application of the Compram Methodology in the context of addressing complex societal problems. As such, it offers a valuable resource for scientists, practitioners, politicians, master and PhD students in the fields of methodology, the social sciences, operational research, management and political science and for all others who are professionally involved in handling complex societal problems. These problems are the kind that fill the front page of quality newspapers; they have a huge impact on society, involve a variety of phenomena and actors, and are therefore difficult to handle. The structured Compram Methodology provides sound guidelines for handling real-life societal problems democratically, sustainably and transparently. Examples of the use of the Compram Methodology are provided in the domain of global safety with regard to healthcare, economics, climate change, terrorism, large city problems, large technological projects and floods. Complex societal problems must be treated as multi-disciplinary, multi-actor, multi-level and often as multi-continental issues. As such, they call for a multi-disciplinary and multi-actor approach that takes into account the emotional aspects of the problem and the problem handling process, including the micro, meso and macro level, which can be accomplished using the methods, models and tools from the field of the Methodology of Societal Complexity. The Compram Methodology improves the problem handling process and increases the quality of interventions and therefore the quality of life. Handling complex societal problems can reduce conflicts, save money and ultimately even save lives. Dorien J. DeTombe is an internationally recognized expert and founder of the Theory of the Methodology of Societal Complexity and the Compram Methodology.