This book will present the papers delivered at the first U.S. conference devoted exclusively to global optimization and will thus provide valuable insights into the significant research on the topic that has been emerging during recent years. Held at Princeton University in May 1991, the conference brought together an interdisciplinary group of the most active developers of algorithms for global optimization in order to focus the attention of the mathematical programming community on the unsolved problems and diverse applications of this field. The main subjects addressed at the conference were advances in deterministic and stochastic methods for global optimization, parallel algorithms for global optimization problems, and applications of global optimization. Although global optimization is primarily a mathematical problem, it is relevant to several other disciplines, including computer science, applied mathematics, physical chemistry, molecular biology, statistics, physics, engineering, operations research, communication theory, and economics. Global optimization problems originate from a wide variety of mathematical models of real-world systems. Some of its applications are allocation and location problems and VLSI and data-base design problems. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This proceedings volume addresses advances in global optimization—a multidisciplinary research field that deals with the analysis, characterization and computation of global minima and/or maxima of nonlinear, non-convex and nonsmooth functions in continuous or discrete forms. The volume contains selected papers from the third biannual World Congress on Global Optimization in Engineering & Science (WCGO), held in the Yellow Mountains, Anhui, China on July 8-12, 2013. The papers fall into eight topical sections: mathematical programming; combinatorial optimization; duality theory; topology optimization; variational inequalities and complementarity problems; numerical optimization; stochastic models and simulation and complex simulation and supply chain analysis.

Global optimization is concerned with the computation and characterization of global optima of nonlinear functions. During the past three decades the field of global optimization has been growing at a rapid pace, and the number of publications on all aspects of global optimization has been increasing steadily. Many applications, as well as new theoretical, algorithmic, and computational contributions have resulted. The Handbook of Global Optimization is the first comprehensive book to cover recent developments in global optimization. Each contribution in the Handbook is essentially expository in nature, but scholarly in its treatment. The chapters cover optimality conditions, complexity results, concave minimization, DC programming, general quadratic programming, nonlinear complementarity, minimax problems, multiplicative programming, Lipschitz optimization, fractional programming, network problems, trajectory methods, homotopy methods, interval methods, and stochastic approaches. The Handbook of Global Optimization is addressed to researchers in mathematical programming, as well as all scientists who use optimization methods to model and solve problems.

Mathematical optimization encompasses both a rich and rapidly evolving body of fundamental theory, and a variety of exciting applications in science and engineering. The present book contains a careful selection of articles on recent advances in optimization theory, numerical methods, and their applications in engineering. It features in particular new methods and applications in the fields of optimal control, PDE-constrained optimization, nonlinear optimization, and convex optimization. The authors of this volume took part in the 14th Belgian-French-German Conference on Optimization (BFG09) organized in Leuven, Belgium, on September 14-18, 2009. The volume contains a selection of reviewed articles contributed by the conference speakers as well as three survey articles by plenary speakers and two papers authored by the winners of the best talk and best poster prizes awarded at BFG09. Researchers and graduate students in applied mathematics, computer science, and many branches of engineering will find in this book an interesting and useful collection of recent ideas on the methods and applications of optimization.

A large number of mathematical models in many diverse areas of science and engineering have lead to the formulation of optimization problems where the best solution (globally optimal) is needed. This book covers a small subset of important topics in global optimization with emphasis on theoretical developments and scientific applications.

Nowadays, music-inspired phenomenon-mimicking harmony search algorithm is fast growing with many applications. One of key success factors of the algorithm is the employment of a novel stochastic derivative which can be used even for discrete variables. Instead of traditional calculus-based gradient, the algorithm utilizes musician’s experience as a derivative in searching for an optimal solution. This can be a new paradigm and main reason in the successes of various applications. The goal of this book is to introduce major advances of the harmony search algorithm in recent years. The book contains 14 chapters with the following subjects: State-of-the-art in the harmony search algorithm structure; robotics (robot terrain and manipulator trajectory); visual tracking; web text data mining; power flow planning; fuzzy control system; hybridization (with Taguchi method or SQP method); groundwater management; irrigation ; logistics; timetabling; and bioinformatics (RNA structure prediction). This book collects the above-mentioned theory and applications, which are dispersed in various technical publications, so that readers can have a good grasp of current status of the harmony search algorithm and foster new breakthroughs in their fields using the algorithm.

Sponsored by the Technical Committee on Structural Design of the Technical Administrative Committee on Analysis and Computation of the Technical Activities Division of the Structural Engineering Institute of ASCE. This report documents the dramatic new developments in the field of structural optimization over the last two decades. Changes in both computational techniques and applications can be seen by developments in computational methods and solution algorithms, the role of optimization during the various stages of structural design, and the stochastic nature of design in relation to structural optimization. Topics include: Ømethods for discrete variable structural optimization; Ødecomposition methods in structural optimization; Østate of the art on the use of genetic algorithms in design of steel structures; Øconceptual design optimization of engineering structures; Øtopology and geometry optimization of trusses and frames; Øevolutionary structural optimization; Ødesign and optimization of semi-rigid framed structures; Øoptimized performance-based design for buildings; Ømulti-objective optimum design of seismic-resistant structures; and Øreliability- and cost-oriented optimal bridge maintenance planning. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography of journal papers on structural optimization published between 1987 and 1999.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th European PVM/MPI Users'Group Meeting held in Linz, Austria in September/October 2002. The 50 revised full papers presented together with abstracts of 11 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected. The papers are organized in topical sections on Corss Grid, Par Sim, application using MPI and PVM, parallel algorithms using message passing, programming tools for MPI and PVM, implementations of MPI and PVM, extensions of MPI and PVM, and performance analysis and optimization.

Technological improvements continue to push back the frontier of processor speed in modern computers. Unfortunately, the computational intensity demanded by modern research problems grows even faster. Parallel computing has emerged as the most successful bridge to this computational gap, and many popular solutions have emerged based on its concepts

This timely review volume summarizes the state-of-the-art developments in nature-inspired algorithms and applications with the emphasis on swarm intelligence and bio-inspired computation. Topics include the analysis and overview of swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation, hybrid metaheuristic algorithms, bat algorithm, discrete cuckoo search, firefly algorithm, particle swarm optimization, and harmony search as well as convergent hybridization. Application case studies have focused on the dehydration of fruits and vegetables by the firefly algorithm and goal programming, feature selection by the binary flower pollination algorithm, job shop scheduling, single row facility layout optimization, training of feed-forward neural networks, damage and stiffness identification, synthesis of cross-ambiguity functions by the bat algorithm, web document clustering, truss analysis, water distribution networks, sustainable building designs and others. As a timely review, this book can serve as an ideal reference for graduates, lecturers, engineers and researchers in computer science, evolutionary computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computational intelligence, data mining, engineering optimization and designs.