This book explores fundamental aspects of geometric network optimisation with applications to a variety of real world problems. It presents, for the first time in the literature, a cohesive mathematical framework within which the properties of such optimal interconnection networks can be understood across a wide range of metrics and cost functions. The book makes use of this mathematical theory to develop efficient algorithms for constructing such networks, with an emphasis on exact solutions. Marcus Brazil and Martin Zachariasen focus principally on the geometric structure of optimal interconnection networks, also known as Steiner trees, in the plane. They show readers how an understanding of this structure can lead to practical exact algorithms for constructing such trees. The book also details numerous breakthroughs in this area over the past 20 years, features clearly written proofs, and is supported by 135 colour and 15 black and white figures. It will help graduate students, working mathematicians, engineers and computer scientists to understand the principles required for designing interconnection networks in the plane that are as cost efficient as possible.

This book examines the main methodological and theoretical developments in stochastic global optimization. It is designed to inspire readers to explore various stochastic methods of global optimization by clearly explaining the main methodological principles and features of the methods. Among the book's features is a comprehensive study of probabilistic and statistical models underlying the stochastic optimization algorithms.

Variational principles have proven to be surprisingly fertile. For example, Fermat used variational methods to demonstrate that light follows the fastest route from one point to another, an idea which came to be a cornerstone of geometrical optics. This book explains variational principles and charts their use throughout modern physics. It examines the analytical mechanics of Lagrange and Hamilton, the basic tools of any physicist. The book also offers simple but rich first impressions of Einstein’s General Relativity, Feynman’s Quantum Mechanics, and more that reveal amazing interconnections between various fields of physics.

The field of global optimization has been developing at a rapid pace. There is a journal devoted to the topic, as well as many publications and notable books discussing various aspects of global optimization. This book is intended to complement these other publications with a focus on stochastic methods for global optimization. Stochastic methods, such as simulated annealing and genetic algo rithms, are gaining in popularity among practitioners and engineers be they are relatively easy to program on a computer and may be cause applied to a broad class of global optimization problems. However, the theoretical performance of these stochastic methods is not well under stood. In this book, an attempt is made to describe the theoretical prop erties of several stochastic adaptive search methods. Such a theoretical understanding may allow us to better predict algorithm performance and ultimately design new and improved algorithms. This book consolidates a collection of papers on the analysis and de velopment of stochastic adaptive search. The first chapter introduces random search algorithms. Chapters 2-5 describe the theoretical anal ysis of a progression of algorithms. A main result is that the expected number of iterations for pure adaptive search is linear in dimension for a class of Lipschitz global optimization problems. Chapter 6 discusses algorithms, based on the Hit-and-Run sampling method, that have been developed to approximate the ideal performance of pure random search. The final chapter discusses several applications in engineering that use stochastic adaptive search methods."

The scope of this volume is primarily to analyze from different methodological perspectives similar valuation and optimization problems arising in financial applications, aimed at facilitating a theoretical and computational integration between methods largely regarded as alternatives. Increasingly in recent years, financial management problems such as strategic asset allocation, asset-liability management, as well as asset pricing problems, have been presented in the literature adopting formulation and solution approaches rooted in stochastic programming, robust optimization, stochastic dynamic programming (including approximate SDP) methods, as well as policy rule optimization, heuristic approaches and others. The aim of the volume is to facilitate the comprehension of the modeling and methodological potentials of those methods, thus their common assumptions and peculiarities, relying on similar financial problems. The volume will address different valuation problems common in finance related to: asset pricing, optimal portfolio management, risk measurement, risk control and asset-liability management.The volume features chapters of theoretical and practical relevance clarifying recent advances in the associated applied field from different standpoints, relying on similar valuation problems and, as mentioned, facilitating a mutual and beneficial methodological and theoretical knowledge transfer. The distinctive aspects of the volume can be summarized as follows: Strong benchmarking philosophy, with contributors explicitly asked to underline current limits and desirable developments in their areas. Theoretical contributions, aimed at advancing the state-of-the-art in the given domain with a clear potential for applications The inclusion of an algorithmic-computational discussion of issues arising on similar valuation problems across different methods. Variety of applications: rarely is it possible within a single volume to consider and analyze different, and possibly competing, alternative optimization techniques applied to well-identified financial valuation problems. Clear definition of the current state-of-the-art in each methodological and applied area to facilitate future research directions.

Operations research and mathematical programming would not be as advanced today without the many advances in interior point methods during the last decade. These methods can now solve very efficiently and robustly large scale linear, nonlinear and combinatorial optimization problems that arise in various practical applications. The main ideas underlying interior point methods have influenced virtually all areas of mathematical programming including: analyzing and solving linear and nonlinear programming problems, sensitivity analysis, complexity analysis, the analysis of Newton's method, decomposition methods, polynomial approximation for combinatorial problems etc. This book covers the implications of interior techniques for the entire field of mathematical programming, bringing together many results in a uniform and coherent way. For the topics mentioned above the book provides theoretical as well as computational results, explains the intuition behind the main ideas, gives examples as well as proofs, and contains an extensive up-to-date bibliography. Audience: The book is intended for students, researchers and practitioners with a background in operations research, mathematics, mathematical programming, or statistics.

This book is the first easy-to-read text on nonsmooth optimization (NSO, not necessarily di erentiable optimization). Solving these kinds of problems plays a critical role in many industrial applications and real-world modeling systems, for example in the context of image denoising, optimal control, neural network training, data mining, economics and computational chemistry and physics. The book covers both the theory and the numerical methods used in NSO and provide an overview of di erent problems arising in the eld. It is organized into three parts:

1. convex and nonconvex analysis and the theory of NSO;

2. test problems and practical applications;

3. a guide to NSO software.The book is ideal for anyone teaching or attending NSO courses. As an accessible introduction to the eld, it is also well suited as an independent learning guide for practitioners already familiar with the basics of optimization."

This monograph explores a dual variational formulation of solutions to nonlinear diffusion equations with general nonlinearities as null minimizers of appropriate energy functionals. The author demonstrates how this method can be utilized as a convenient tool for proving the existence of these solutions when others may fail, such as in cases of evolution equations with nonautonomous operators, with low regular data, or with singular diffusion coefficients. By reducing it to a minimization problem, the original problem is transformed into an optimal control problem with a linear state equation. This procedure simplifies the proof of the existence of minimizers and, in particular, the determination of the first-order conditions of optimality. The dual variational formulation is illustrated in the text with specific diffusion equations that have general nonlinearities provided by potentials having various stronger or weaker properties. These equations can represent mathematical models to various real-world physical processes. Inverse problems and optimal control problems are also considered, as this technique is useful in their treatment as well.

This text provides the undergraduate chemical engineering student with the necessary tools for problem solving in chemical or bio-engineering processes. In a friendly, simple, and unified framework, the exposition aptly balances theory and practice. It uses minimal mathematical concepts, terms, algorithms, and describes the main aspects of chemical process optimization using MATLAB and GAMS. Numerous examples and case studies are designed for students to understand basic principles of each optimization method and elicit the immediate discovery of practical applications. Problem sets are directly tied to real-world situations most commonly encountered in chemical engineering applications. Chapters are structured with handy learning summaries, terms and concepts, and problem sets, and individually reinforce the basics of particular optimization methods. Additionally, the wide breadth of topics that may be encountered in courses such as Chemical Process Optimization, Chemical Process Engineering, Optimization of Chemical Processes, are covered in this accessible text. The book provides formal introductions to MATLAB, GAMS, and a revisit to pertinent aspects of undergraduate calculus. While created for coursework, this text is also suitable for independent study. A full solutions manual is available to instructors who adopt the text for their course.

This book is a rigorous but practical presentation of the techniques of uncertainty quantification, with applications in R and Python. This volume includes mathematical arguments at the level necessary to make the presentation rigorous and the assumptions clearly established, while maintaining a focus on practical applications of uncertainty quantification methods. Practical aspects of applied probability are also discussed, making the content accessible to students. The introduction of R and Python allows the reader to solve more complex problems involving a more significant number of variables. Users will be able to use examples laid out in the text to solve medium-sized problems. The list of topics covered in this volume includes linear and nonlinear programming, Lagrange multipliers (for sensitivity), multi-objective optimization, game theory, as well as linear algebraic equations, and probability and statistics. Blending theoretical rigor and practical applications, this volume will be of interest to professionals, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students interested in the use of uncertainty quantification techniques within the framework of operations research and mathematical programming, for applications in management and planning.

The author of this book made an attempt to create the general theory of optimization of linear systems (both distributed and lumped) with a singular control. The book touches upon a wide range of issues such as solvability of boundary values problems for partial differential equations with generalized right-hand sides, the existence of optimal controls, the necessary conditions of optimality, the controllability of systems, numerical methods of approximation of generalized solutions of initial boundary value problems with generalized data, and numerical methods for approximation of optimal controls. In particular, the problems of optimization of linear systems with lumped controls (pulse, point, pointwise, mobile and so on) are investigated in detail.

Contains case studies from engineering and operations research

Includes commented literature for each chapter

This volume highlights contributions of women mathematicians in the study of complex materials and includes both original research papers and reviews. The featured topics and methods draw on the fields of Calculus of Variations, Partial Differential Equations, Functional Analysis, Differential Geometry and Topology, as well as Numerical Analysis and Mathematical Modelling. Areas of applications include foams, fluid-solid interactions, liquid crystals, shape-memory alloys, magnetic suspensions, failure in solids, plasticity, viscoelasticity, homogenization, crystallization, grain growth, and phase-field models.

The research of Antanas Zilinskas has focused on developing models for global optimization, implementing and investigating the corresponding algorithms, and applying those algorithms to practical problems. This volume, dedicated to Professor Zilinskas on the occasion of his 60th birthday, contains new survey papers in which leading researchers from the field present various models and algorithms for solving global optimization problems.

This volume provides updated, in-depth material on the application of intelligent optimization in biology and medicine. The aim of the book is to present solutions to the challenges and problems facing biology and medicine applications. This Volume comprises of 13 chapters, including an overview chapter, providing an up-to-date and state-of-the research on the application of intelligent optimization for bioinformatics applications, DNA based Steganography, a modified Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm for Solving Capacitated Maximal Covering Location Problem in Healthcare Systems, Optimization Methods for Medical Image Super Resolution Reconstruction and breast cancer classification. Moreover, some chapters that describe several bio-inspired approaches in MEDLINE Text Mining, DNA-Binding Proteins and Classes, Optimized Tumor Breast Cancer Classification using Combining Random Subspace and Static Classifiers Selection Paradigms, and Dental Image Registration. The book will be a useful compendium for a broad range of readers-from students of undergraduate to postgraduate levels and also for researchers, professionals, etc.-who wish to enrich their knowledge on Intelligent Optimization in Biology and Medicine and applications with one single book.

This book presents the best papers from the 3rd International Conference on Mathematical Research for Blockchain Economy (MARBLE) 2022, held in Vilamoura, Portugal. While most blockchain conferences and forums are dedicated to business applications, product development or Initial Coin Offering (ICO) launches, this conference focuses on the mathematics behind blockchain to bridge the gap between practice and theory. Blockchain Technology has been considered as the most fundamental and revolutionising invention since the Internet. Every year, thousands of blockchain projects are launched and circulated in the market, and there is a tremendous wealth of blockchain applications, from finance to healthcare, education, media, logistics and more. However, due to theoretical and technical barriers, most of these applications are impractical for use in a real-world business context. The papers in this book reveal the challenges and limitations, such as scalability, latency, privacy and security, and showcase solutions and developments to overcome them.

The aim of Metaheuristics: Progress in Complex Systems Optimization is to provide several different kinds of information: a delineation of general metaheuristics methods, a number of state-of-the-art articles from a variety of well-known classical application areas as well as an outlook to modern computational methods in promising new areas. Therefore, this book may equally serve as a textbook in graduate courses for students, as a reference book for people interested in engineering or social sciences, and as a collection of new and promising avenues for researchers working in this field. Highlighted are recent developments in the areas of Simulated Annealing, Path Relinking, Scatter Search, Tabu Search, Variable Neighborhood Search, Hyper-heuristics, Constraint Programming, Iterated Local Search, GRASP, bio-inspired algorithms like Genetic Algorithms, Memetic Algorithms, Ant Colony Optimization or Swarm Intelligence, and several other paradigms.

This book presents the development of an optimization platform for geotechnical engineering, which is one of the key components in smart geotechnics. The book discusses the fundamentals of the optimization algorithm with constitutive models of soils. Helping readers easily understand the optimization algorithm applied in geotechnical engineering, this book first introduces the methodology of the optimization-based parameter identification, and then elaborates the principle of three newly developed efficient optimization algorithms, followed by the ideas of a variety of laboratory tests and formulations of constitutive models. Moving on to the application of optimization methods in geotechnical engineering, this book presents an optimization-based parameter identification platform with a practical and concise interface based on the above theories. The book is intended for undergraduate and graduate-level teaching in soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering and other related engineering specialties. It is also of use to industry practitioners, due to the inclusion of real-world applications, opening the door to advanced courses on both modeling and algorithm development within the industrial engineering and operations research fields.

This book presents new optimization algorithms designed to improve the efficiency of tool paths for five-axis NC machining of sculptured surfaces. The book covers both the structure of the SLAM problem in general and proposes a new extremely efficient approach. It can be used by undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in the field of NC machining and CAD/CAM as well as by corporate research groups for advanced optimization of cutting operations.

In the fifties and sixties, several real problems, old and new, especially in Physics, Mechanics, Fluidodynamics, Structural Engi- neering, have shown the need of new mathematical models for study- ing the equilibrium of a system. This has led to the formulation of Variational Inequalities (by G. Stampacchia), and to the develop- ment of Complementarity Systems (by W.S. Dorn, G.B. Dantzig, R.W. Cottle, O.L. Mangasarian et al.) with important applications in the elasto-plastic field (initiated by G. Maier). The great advan- tage of these models is that the equilibrium is not necessarily the extremum of functional, like energy, so that no such functional must be supposed to exist. In the same decades, in some fields like Control Theory, Net- works, Industrial Systems, Logistics, Management Science, there has been a strong request of mathmatical models for optimizing situa- tions where there are concurrent objectives, so that Vector Optimiza- tion (initiated by W. Pareto) has received new impetus. With regard to equilibrium problems, Vector Optimization has the above - mentioned drawback of being obliged to assume the exis- tence of a (vector) functional. Therefore, at the end of the seventies the study of Vector Variational Inequalities began with the scope of exploiting the advantages of both variational and vector models. This volume puts together most of the recent mathematical results in Vector Variational Inequalities with the purpose of contributing to further research.

Introductory courses in combinatorial optimization are popular at the upper undergraduate/graduate levels in computer science, industrial engineering, and business management/OR, owed to its wide applications in these fields. There are several published textbooks that treat this course and the authors have used many of them in their own teaching experiences. This present text fills a gap and is organized with a stress on methodology and relevant content, providing a step-by-step approach for the student to become proficient in solving combinatorial optimization problems. Applications and problems are considered via recent technology developments including wireless communication, cloud computing, social networks, and machine learning, to name several, and the reader is led to the frontiers of combinatorial optimization. Each chapter presents common problems, such as minimum spanning tree, shortest path, maximum matching, network flow, set-cover, as well as key algorithms, such as greedy algorithm, dynamic programming, augmenting path, and divide-and-conquer. Historical notes, ample exercises in every chapter, strategically placed graphics, and an extensive bibliography are amongst the gems of this textbook.

In the field of nondifferentiable nonconvex optimization, one of the most intensely investigated areas is that of optimization problems involving multivalued mappings in constraints or as the objective function. This book focuses on the tremendous development in the field that has taken place since the publication of the most recent volumes on the subject. The new topics studied include the formulation of optimality conditions using different kinds of generalized derivatives for set-valued mappings (such as, for example, the coderivative of Mordukhovich), the opening of new applications (e.g., the calibration of water supply systems), or the elaboration of new solution algorithms (e.g., smoothing methods). The book is divided into three parts. The focus in the first part is on bilevel programming. The chapters in the second part contain investigations of mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints. The third part is on multivalued set-valued optimization. The chapters were written by outstanding experts in the areas of bilevel programming, mathematical programs with equilibrium (or complementarity) constraints (MPEC), and set-valued optimization problems.

This book is devoted to the study of two large classes of discrete-time optimal control problems arising in mathematical economics. Nonautonomous optimal control problems of the first class are determined by a sequence of objective functions and sequence of constraint maps. They correspond to a general model of economic growth. We are interested in turnpike properties of approximate solutions and in the stability of the turnpike phenomenon under small perturbations of objective functions and constraint maps. The second class of autonomous optimal control problems corresponds to another general class of models of economic dynamics which includes the Robinson-Solow-Srinivasan model as a particular case. In Chap. 1 we discuss turnpike properties for a large class of discrete-time optimal control problems studied in the literature and for the Robinson-Solow-Srinivasan model. In Chap. 2 we introduce the first class of optimal control problems and study its turnpike property. This class of problems is also discussed in Chaps. 3-6. In Chap. 3 we study the stability of the turnpike phenomenon under small perturbations of the objective functions. Analogous results for problems with discounting are considered in Chap. 4. In Chap. 5 we study the stability of the turnpike phenomenon under small perturbations of the objective functions and the constraint maps. Analogous results for problems with discounting are established in Chap. 6. The results of Chaps. 5 and 6 are new. The second class of problems is studied in Chaps. 7-9. In Chap. 7 we study the turnpike properties. The stability of the turnpike phenomenon under small perturbations of the objective functions is established in Chap. 8. In Chap. 9 we establish the stability of the turnpike phenomenon under small perturbations of the objective functions and the constraint maps. The results of Chaps. 8 and 9 are new. In Chap. 10 we study optimal control problems related to a model of knowledge-based endogenous economic growth and show the existence of trajectories of unbounded economic growth and provide estimates for the growth rate.

Structural optimization is currently attracting considerable attention. Interest in - search in optimal design has grown in connection with the rapid development of aeronautical and space technologies, shipbuilding, and design of precision mach- ery. A special ?eld in these investigations is devoted to structural optimization with incomplete information (incomplete data). The importance of these investigations is explained as follows. The conventional theory of optimal structural design - sumes precise knowledge of material parameters, including damage characteristics and loadings applied to the structure. In practice such precise knowledge is seldom available. Thus, it is important to be able to predict the sensitivity of a designed structure to random ?uctuations in the environment and to variations in the material properties. To design reliable structures it is necessary to apply the so-called gu- anteed approach, based on a "worst case scenario" or a more optimistic probabilistic approach, if we have additional statistical data. Problems of optimal design with incomplete information also have consid- able theoretical importance. The introduction and investigations into new types of mathematical problems are interesting in themselves. Note that some ga- theoretical optimization problems arise for which there are no systematic techniques of investigation. This monograph is devoted to the exposition of new ways of formulating and solving problems of structural optimization with incomplete information. We recall some research results concerning the optimum shape and structural properties of bodies subjected to external loadings.

In a world with highly competitive markets and economic instability due to capitalization, industrial competition has increasingly intensified. In order for many industries to survive and succeed, they need to develop highly effective coordination between supply chain partners, dynamic collaborative and strategic alliance relationships, and efficient logistics and supply chain network designs. Consequently, in the past decade, there has been an explosion of interest among academic researchers and industrial practitioners in innovative supply chain and logistics models, algorithms, and coordination policies. Mathematically distinct from classical supply chain management, this emerging research area has been proven to be useful and applicable to a wide variety of industries. This book brings together recent advances in supply chain and logistics research and computational optimization that apply to a collaborative environment in the enterprise.