This book introduces and analyses the latest maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques, which can effectively reduce the cost of power generated from photovoltaic energy systems. It also presents a detailed description, analysis, and comparison of various MPPT techniques applied to stand-alone systems and those interfaced with electric utilities, examining their performance under normal and abnormal operating conditions. These techniques, which and can be conventional or smart, are a current hot topic, and this book is a valuable reference resource for academic researchers and industry professionals who are interested in exploring and implementing advanced MPPT for photovoltaic systems. It is also useful for graduate students who are looking to expand their knowledge of MPPT techniques.

This book includes a collection of articles that present recent developments in the fields of optimization and dynamic game theory, economic dynamics, dynamic theory of the firm, and population dynamics and non standard applications of optimal control theory. The authors of the articles are well respected authorities in their fields and are known for their high quality research in the fields of optimization and economic dynamics.

This book introduces readers to the use of R codes for optimization problems. First, it provides the necessary background to understand data envelopment analysis (DEA), with a special emphasis on fuzzy DEA. It then describes DEA models, including fuzzy DEA models, and shows how to use them to solve optimization problems with R. Further, it discusses the main advantages of R in optimization problems, and provides R codes based on real-world data sets throughout. Offering a comprehensive review of DEA and fuzzy DEA models and the corresponding R codes, this practice-oriented reference guide is intended for masters and Ph.D. students in various disciplines, as well as practitioners and researchers.

This book introduces readers to the background, general framework, main operators, and other basic characteristics of biogeography-based optimization (BBO), which is an emerging branch of bio-inspired computation. In particular, the book presents the authors' recent work on improved variants of BBO, hybridization of BBO with other algorithms, and the application of BBO to a variety of domains including transportation, image processing, and neural network learning. The content will help to advance research into and application of not only BBO but also the whole field of bio-inspired computation. The algorithms and applications are organized in a step-by-step manner and clearly described with the help of pseudo-codes and flowcharts. The readers will learn not only the basic concepts of BBO but also how to apply and adapt the algorithms to the engineering optimization problems they actually encounter.

The research and review papers presented in this volume provide an overview of the main issues, findings, and open questions in cutting-edge research on the fields of modeling, optimization and dynamics and their applications to biology, economics, energy, finance, industry, physics and psychology. Given the scientific relevance of the innovative applications and emerging issues they address, the contributions to this volume, written by some of the world's leading experts in mathematics, economics and other applied sciences, will be seminal to future research developments and will spark future works and collaborations. The majority of the papers presented in this volume were written by participants of the 4th International Conference on Dynamics, Games and Science: Decision Models in a Complex Economy (DGS IV), held at the National Distance Education University (UNED) in Madrid, Spain in June 2016 and of the 8th Berkeley Bioeconomy Conference: The Future of Biofuels, held at the UC Berkeley Alumni House in April 2015.

This monograph presents new theories and methods for fixed-time cooperative control of multi-agent systems. Fundamental concepts of fixed-time stability and stabilization are introduced with insightful understanding. This book presents solutions for several problems of fixed-time cooperative control using systematic design methods. The book compares fixed-time cooperative control with asymptotic cooperative control, demonstrating how the former can achieve better closed-loop performance and disturbance rejection properties. It also discusses the differences from finite-time control, and shows how fixed-time cooperative control can produce the faster rate of convergence and provide an explicit estimate of the settling time independent of initial conditions. This monograph presents multiple applications of fixed-time control schemes, including to distributed optimization of multi-agent systems, making it useful to students, researchers and engineers alike.

This book presents state-of-the-art research advances in the field of biologically inspired cooperative control theories and their applications. It describes various biologically inspired cooperative control and optimization approaches and highlights real-world examples in complex industrial processes. Multidisciplinary in nature and closely integrating theory and practice, the book will be of interest to all university researchers, control engineers and graduate students in intelligent systems and control who wish to learn the core principles, methods, algorithms, and applications.

This book presents the topology optimization theory for laminar flows with low and moderate Reynolds numbers, based on the density method and level-set method, respectively. The density-method-based theory offers efficient convergence, while the level-set-method-based theory can provide anaccurate mathematical expression of the structural boundary. Unsteady, body-force-driven and two-phase properties are basic characteristics of the laminar flows. The book discusses these properties, which are typical of microfluidics and one of the research hotspots in the area of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), providing an efficient inverse design approach for microfluidic structures. To demonstrate the applications of this topology optimization theory in the context of microfluidics, it also investigates inverse design for the micromixer, microvalve and micropump, which are key elements in lab-on-chip devices.

This book addresses mathematics in a wide variety of applications, ranging from problems in electronics, energy and the environment, to mechanics and mechatronics. Using the classification system defined in the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020, several of the topics covered belong to the challenge climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials; and some to health, demographic change and wellbeing; while others belong to Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies. The 19th European Conference on Mathematics for Industry, ECMI2016, was held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain in June 2016. The proceedings of this conference include the plenary lectures, ECMI awards and special lectures, mini-symposia (including the description of each mini-symposium) and contributed talks. The ECMI conferences are organized by the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry with the aim of promoting interaction between academy and industry, leading to innovation in both fields and providing unique opportunities to discuss the latest ideas, problems and methodologies, and contributing to the advancement of science and technology. They also encourage industrial sectors to propose challenging problems where mathematicians can provide insights and fresh perspectives. Lastly, the ECMI conferences are one of the main forums in which significant advances in industrial mathematics are presented, bringing together prominent figures from business, science and academia to promote the use of innovative mathematics in industry.

This new work by Wilfred Kaplan, the distinguished author of influential mathematics and engineering texts, is destined to become a classic. Timely, concise, and content-driven, it provides an intermediate-level treatment of maxima, minima, and optimization. Assuming only a background in calculus and some linear algebra, Professor Kaplan presents topics in order of difficulty. In four short chapters, he describes basic concepts and geometric aspects of maxima and minima, progresses to problems with side conditions, introduces optimization and programming, and concludes with an in-depth discussion of research topics involving the duality theorems of Fenchel and Rockafellar. Throughout the text, the subject of convexity is gradually developed-from its theoretical underpinnings to problems, and finally, to its role in applications. Other features include:
* A strong emphasis on practical applications of maxima and minima
* An impressive array of supporting topics such as numerical analysis
* An ample number of examples and problems
* More than 60 illustrations highlighting the text
* Algorithms to reinforce concepts
* An appendix reviewing the prerequisite linear algebra
Maxima and Minima with Applications is an ideal text for upper-undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in operations research, management, general engineering, and applied mathematics. It can also be used to supplement courses on linear and nonlinear optimization. This volume's broad scope makes it an excellent reference for professionals wishing to learn more about cutting-edge topics in optimization and mathematical programming.

This book provides a comprehensive account of the glowworm swarm optimization (GSO) algorithm, including details of the underlying ideas, theoretical foundations, algorithm development, various applications, and MATLAB programs for the basic GSO algorithm. It also discusses several research problems at different levels of sophistication that can be attempted by interested researchers. The generality of the GSO algorithm is evident in its application to diverse problems ranging from optimization to robotics. Examples include computation of multiple optima, annual crop planning, cooperative exploration, distributed search, multiple source localization, contaminant boundary mapping, wireless sensor networks, clustering, knapsack, numerical integration, solving fixed point equations, solving systems of nonlinear equations, and engineering design optimization. The book is a valuable resource for researchers as well as graduate and undergraduate students in the area of swarm intelligence and computational intelligence and working on these topics.

The book focuses on the next fields of computer science: combinatorial optimization, scheduling theory, decision theory, and computer-aided production management systems. It also offers a quick introduction into the theory of PSC-algorithms, which are a new class of efficient methods for intractable problems of combinatorial optimization. A PSC-algorithm is an algorithm which includes: sufficient conditions of a feasible solution optimality for which their checking can be implemented only at the stage of a feasible solution construction, and this construction is carried out by a polynomial algorithm (the first polynomial component of the PSC-algorithm); an approximation algorithm with polynomial complexity (the second polynomial component of the PSC-algorithm); also, for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems, an exact subalgorithm if sufficient conditions were found, fulfilment of which during the algorithm execution turns it into a polynomial complexity algorithm. Practitioners and software developers will find the book useful for implementing advanced methods of production organization in the fields of planning (including operative planning) and decision making. Scientists, graduate and master students, or system engineers who are interested in problems of combinatorial optimization, decision making with poorly formalized overall goals, or a multiple regression construction will benefit from this book.

This book presents the design of delay-efficient packet schedulers for heterogeneous M2M uplink traffic classified into several classes, based on packet delay requirements, payload size, arrival process, etc. Specifically, the authors use tools from queuing theory to determine the delay-optimal scheduling policy. The proposed packet schedulers are designed for a generic M2M architecture and thus equally applicable to any M2M application. Additionally, due to their low implementation complexity and excellent delay-performance, they authors show how they are also well-suited for practical M2M systems. The book pertains primarily to real-time process scheduler experts in industry/academia and graduate students whose research deals with designing Quality-of-Service-aware packet schedulers for M2M packet schedulers over existing and future cellular infrastructure. Presents queuing theoretic analysis and optimization techniques used to design proposed packet scheduling strategies; Provides utility functions to precisely model diverse delay requirements, which lends itself to formulation of utility-maximization problems for determining the delay- or utility-optimal packet scheduler; Includes detail on low implementation complexity of the proposed scheduler by using iterative and distributed optimization techniques.

This book gathers the main recent results on positive trigonometric polynomials within a unitary framework. The book has two parts: theory and applications. The theory of sum-of-squares trigonometric polynomials is presented unitarily based on the concept of Gram matrix (extended to Gram pair or Gram set). The applications part is organized as a collection of related problems that use systematically the theoretical results.

This book introduces methods of robust optimization in multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and Conic MARS in order to handle uncertainty and non-linearity. The proposed techniques are implemented and explained in two-model regulatory systems that can be found in the financial sector and in the contexts of banking, environmental protection, system biology and medicine. The book provides necessary background information on multi-model regulatory networks, optimization and regression. It presents the theory of and approaches to robust (conic) multivariate adaptive regression splines - R(C)MARS - and robust (conic) generalized partial linear models - R(C)GPLM - under polyhedral uncertainty. Further, it introduces spline regression models for multi-model regulatory networks and interprets (C)MARS results based on different datasets for the implementation. It explains robust optimization in these models in terms of both the theory and methodology. In this context it studies R(C)MARS results with different uncertainty scenarios for a numerical example. Lastly, the book demonstrates the implementation of the method in a number of applications from the financial, energy, and environmental sectors, and provides an outlook on future research.

As the sequel to the proceedings of the International Conference of Continuum Mechanics Focusing on Singularities (CoMFoS15), the proceedings of CoMFoS16 present further advances and new topics in mathematical theory and numerical simulations related to various aspects of continuum mechanics. These include fracture mechanics, shape optimization, modeling of earthquakes, material structure, interface dynamics and complex systems.. The authors are leading researchers with a profound knowledge of mathematical analysis from the fields of applied mathematics, physics, seismology, engineering, and industry. The book helps readers to understand how mathematical theory can be applied to various industrial problems, and conversely, how industrial problems lead to new mathematical challenges.

This volume presents the peer-reviewed proceedings of the international conference Imaging, Vision and Learning Based on Optimization and PDEs (IVLOPDE), held in Bergen, Norway, in August/September 2016. The contributions cover state-of-the-art research on mathematical techniques for image processing, computer vision and machine learning based on optimization and partial differential equations (PDEs). It has become an established paradigm to formulate problems within image processing and computer vision as PDEs, variational problems or finite dimensional optimization problems. This compact yet expressive framework makes it possible to incorporate a range of desired properties of the solutions and to design algorithms based on well-founded mathematical theory. A growing body of research has also approached more general problems within data analysis and machine learning from the same perspective, and demonstrated the advantages over earlier, more established algorithms. This volume will appeal to all mathematicians and computer scientists interested in novel techniques and analytical results for optimization, variational models and PDEs, together with experimental results on applications ranging from early image formation to high-level image and data analysis.

Control of Discrete-Time Descriptor Systems takes an anisotropy-based approach to the explanation of random input disturbance with an information-theoretic representation. It describes the random input signal more precisely, and the anisotropic norm minimization included in the book enables readers to tune their controllers better through the mathematical methods provided. The book contains numerous examples of practical applications of descriptor systems in various fields, from robotics to economics, and presents an information-theoretic approach to the mathematical description of coloured noise. Anisotropy-based analysis and design for descriptor systems is supplied along with proofs of basic statements, which help readers to understand the algorithms proposed, and to undertake their own numerical simulations. This book serves as a source of ideas for academic researchers and postgraduate students working in the control of discrete-time systems. The control design procedures outlined are numerically effective and easily implementable in MATLAB (R)

This monograph offers the first systematic account of (metric) regularity theory in variational analysis. It presents new developments alongside classical results and demonstrates the power of the theory through applications to various problems in analysis and optimization theory. The origins of metric regularity theory can be traced back to a series of fundamental ideas and results of nonlinear functional analysis and global analysis centered around problems of existence and stability of solutions of nonlinear equations. In variational analysis, regularity theory goes far beyond the classical setting and is also concerned with non-differentiable and multi-valued operators. The present volume explores all basic aspects of the theory, from the most general problems for mappings between metric spaces to those connected with fairly concrete and important classes of operators acting in Banach and finite dimensional spaces. Written by a leading expert in the field, the book covers new and powerful techniques, which have proven to be highly efficient even in classical settings, and outlines the theory's predominantly quantitative character, leading to a variety of new and unexpected applications. Variational Analysis of Regular Mappings is aimed at graduate students and researchers in nonlinear and functional analysis, especially those working in areas close to optimization and optimal control, and will be suitable to anyone interested in applying new concepts and ideas to operations research, control engineering and numerical analysis.

This book is about computational methods based on operator splitting. It consists of twenty-three chapters written by recognized splitting method contributors and practitioners, and covers a vast spectrum of topics and application areas, including computational mechanics, computational physics, image processing, wireless communication, nonlinear optics, and finance. Therefore, the book presents very versatile aspects of splitting methods and their applications, motivating the cross-fertilization of ideas.

The book presents eight well-known and often used algorithms besides nine newly developed algorithms by the first author and his students in a practical implementation framework. Matlab codes and some benchmark structural optimization problems are provided. The aim is to provide an efficient context for experienced researchers or readers not familiar with theory, applications and computational developments of the considered metaheuristics. The information will also be of interest to readers interested in application of metaheuristics for hard optimization, comparing conceptually different metaheuristics and designing new metaheuristics.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to nonlinear programming, featuring a broad range of applications and solution methods in the field of continuous optimization. It begins with a summary of classical results on unconstrained optimization, followed by a wealth of applications from a diverse mix of fields, e.g. location analysis, traffic planning, and water quality management, to name but a few. In turn, the book presents a formal description of optimality conditions, followed by an in-depth discussion of the main solution techniques. Each method is formally described, and then fully solved using a numerical example.

Modern optimization approaches have attracted many research scientists, decision makers and practicing researchers in recent years as powerful intelligent computational techniques for solving several complex real-world problems. The Handbook of Research on Modern Optimization Algorithms and Applications in Engineering and Economics highlights the latest research innovations and applications of algorithms designed for optimization applications within the fields of engineering, IT, and economics. Focusing on a variety of methods and systems as well as practical examples, this book is a significant resource for graduate-level students, decision makers, and researchers in both public and private sectors who are seeking research-based methods for modeling uncertain real-world problems.

This book presents the state of the art in designing high-performance algorithms that combine simulation and optimization in order to solve complex optimization problems in science and industry, problems that involve time-consuming simulations and expensive multi-objective function evaluations. As traditional optimization approaches are not applicable per se, combinations of computational intelligence, machine learning, and high-performance computing methods are popular solutions. But finding a suitable method is a challenging task, because numerous approaches have been proposed in this highly dynamic field of research. That's where this book comes in: It covers both theory and practice, drawing on the real-world insights gained by the contributing authors, all of whom are leading researchers. Given its scope, if offers a comprehensive reference guide for researchers, practitioners, and advanced-level students interested in using computational intelligence and machine learning to solve expensive optimization problems.

The contributions in this volume give an insight into current research activities in Shape Optimization, Homogenization and Optimal Control performed in Africa, Germany and internationally. Seeds for collaboration can be found in the first four papers in the field of homogenization. Modelling and optimal control in partial differential equations is the topic of the next six papers, again mixed from Africa and Germany. Finally, new results in the field of shape optimization are discussed in the final international three papers. This workshop, held at the AIMS Center Senegal, March 13-16, 2017, has been supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and by the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Senegal, which is one of six centres of a pan-African network of centres of excellence for postgraduate education, research and outreach in mathematical sciences.