Since the early 1960s, polyhedral methods have played a central role in both the theory and practice of combinatorial optimization. Since the early 1990s, a new technique, semidefinite programming, has been increasingly applied to some combinatorial optimization problems. The semidefinite programming problem is the problem of optimizing a linear function of matrix variables, subject to finitely many linear inequalities and the positive semidefiniteness condition on some of the matrix variables. On certain problems, such as maximum cut, maximum satisfiability, maximum stable set and geometric representations of graphs, semidefinite programming techniques yield important new results. This monograph provides the necessary background to work with semidefinite optimization techniques, usually by drawing parallels to the development of polyhedral techniques and with a special focus on combinatorial optimization, graph theory and lift-and-project methods. It allows the reader to rigorously develop the necessary knowledge, tools and skills to work in the area that is at the intersection of combinatorial optimization and semidefinite optimization. A solid background in mathematics at the undergraduate level and some exposure to linear optimization are required. Some familiarity with computational complexity theory and the analysis of algorithms would be helpful. Readers with these prerequisites will appreciate the important open problems and exciting new directions as well as new connections to other areas in mathematical sciences that the book provides.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 22nd Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization, IPCO 2021, which took place during May 19-21, 2021. The conference was organized by Georgia Institute of Technology and planned to take place it Atlanta, GA, USA, but changed to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 33 papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 90 submissions. IPCO is under the auspices of the MathematicalOptimization Society, and it is an important forum for presenting the latest results of theory and practice of the various aspects of discrete optimization.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Static Analysis Symposium, SAS 2016, held in Edinburgh, UK, in September 2016. The 21 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. The contributions cover a variety of multi-disciplinary topics in abstract domains; abstract interpretation; abstract testing; bug detection; data flow analysis; model checking; new applications; program transformation; program verification; security analysis; theoretical frameworks; and type checking.

The research of Jonathan Borwein has had a profound impact on optimization, functional analysis, operations research, mathematical programming, number theory, and experimental mathematics. Having authored more than a dozen books and more than 300 publications, Jonathan Borwein is one of the most productive Canadian mathematicians ever. His research spans pure, applied, and computational mathematics as well as high performance computing, and continues to have an enormous impact: MathSciNet lists more than 2500 citations by more than 1250 authors, and Borwein is one of the 250 most cited mathematicians of the period 1980-1999. He has served the Canadian Mathematics Community through his presidency (2000–02) as well as his 15 years of editing the CMS book series. Jonathan Borwein’s vision and initiative have been crucial in initiating and developing several institutions that provide support for researchers with a wide range of scientific interests. A few notable examples include the Centre for Experimental and Constructive Mathematics and the IRMACS Centre at Simon Fraser University, the Dalhousie Distributed Research Institute at Dalhousie University, the Western Canada Research Grid, and the Centre for Computer Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications, University of Newcastle. The workshops that were held over the years in Dr. Borwein’s honor attracted high-caliber scientists from a wide range of mathematical fields. This present volume is an outgrowth of the workshop on ‘Computational and Analytical Mathematics’ held in May 2011 in celebration of Dr. Borwein’s 60th Birthday. The collection contains various state-of-the-art research manuscripts and surveys presenting contributions that have risen from the conference, and is an excellent opportunity to survey state-of-the-art research and discuss promising research directions and approaches.

Most coding theory experts date the origin of the subject with the 1948 publication of A Mathematical Theory of Communication by Claude Shannon. Since then, coding theory has grown into a discipline with many practical applications (antennas, networks, memories), requiring various mathematical techniques, from commutative algebra, to semi-definite programming, to algebraic geometry. Most topics covered in the Concise Encyclopedia of Coding Theory are presented in short sections at an introductory level and progress from basic to advanced level, with definitions, examples, and many references. The book is divided into three parts: Part I fundamentals: cyclic codes, skew cyclic codes, quasi-cyclic codes, self-dual codes, codes and designs, codes over rings, convolutional codes, performance bounds Part II families: AG codes, group algebra codes, few-weight codes, Boolean function codes, codes over graphs Part III applications: alternative metrics, algorithmic techniques, interpolation decoding, pseudo-random sequences, lattices, quantum coding, space-time codes, network coding, distributed storage, secret-sharing, and code-based-cryptography. Features Suitable for students and researchers in a wide range of mathematical disciplines Contains many examples and references Most topics take the reader to the frontiers of research

This book provides essential insights into a range of newly developed numerical optimization techniques with a view to solving real-world problems. Many of these problems can be modeled as nonlinear optimization problems, but due to their complex nature, it is not always possible to solve them using conventional optimization theory. Accordingly, the book discusses the design and applications of non-conventional numerical optimization techniques, including the design of benchmark functions and the implementation of these techniques to solve real-world optimization problems. The book’s twenty chapters examine various interesting research topics in this area, including: Pi fraction-based optimization of the Pantoja–Bretones–Martin (PBM) antenna benchmarks; benchmark function generators for single-objective robust optimization algorithms; convergence of gravitational search algorithms on linear and quadratic functions; and an algorithm for the multi-variant evolutionary synthesis of nonlinear models with real-valued chromosomes. Delivering on its promise to explore real-world scenarios, the book also addresses the seismic analysis of a multi-story building with optimized damper properties; the application of constrained spider monkey optimization to solve portfolio optimization problems; the effect of upper body motion on a bipedal robot’s stability; an ant colony algorithm for routing alternate-fuel vehicles in multi-depot vehicle routing problems; enhanced fractal dimension-based feature extraction for thermal face recognition; and an artificial bee colony-based hyper-heuristic for the single machine order acceptance and scheduling problem. The book will benefit not only researchers, but also organizations active in such varied fields as Aerospace, Automotive, Biotechnology, Consumer Packaged Goods, Electronics, Finance, Business & Banking, Oil, Gas & Geosciences, and Pharma, to name a few.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Integer Programming and Combinatorial Optimization, IPCO 2011, held in New York, USA in June 2011. The 33 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 110 submissions. The conference is a forum for researchers and practitioners working on various aspects of integer programming and combinatorial optimization with the aim to present recent developments in theory, computation, and applications. The scope of IPCO is viewed in a broad sense, to include algorithmic and structural results in integer programming and combinatorial optimization as well as revealing computational studies and novel applications of discrete optimization to practical problems.