The contributions appearing in this volume are a snapshot of the different topics that were discussed during the Second Conference "Mathematics and Image Processing" held at the University of Orleans in 2010. They mainly concern, image reconstruction, texture extraction and image classification and involve a variety of different methods and applications. Therefore it was impossible to split the papers into generic groups which is why they are presented in alphabetic order. However they mainly concern: texture analysis (5 papers) with different techniques (variational analysis, wavelet and morphological component analysis, fractional Brownian fields), geometrical methods (2 papers ) for restoration and invariant feature detection, classification (with multifractal analysis), neurosciences imaging and analysis of Multi-Valued Images.

Nonconvex Optimization is a multi-disciplinary research field that deals with the characterization and computation of local/global minima/maxima of nonlinear, nonconvex, nonsmooth, discrete and continuous functions. Nonconvex optimization problems are frequently encountered in modeling real world systems for a very broad range of applications including engineering, mathematical economics, management science, financial engineering, and social science. This contributed volume consists of selected contributions from the Advanced Training Programme on Nonconvex Optimization and Its Applications held at Banaras Hindu University in March 2009. It aims to bring together new concepts, theoretical developments, and applications from these researchers. Both theoretical and applied articles are contained in this volume which adds to the state of the art research in this field. Topics in Nonconvex Optimization is suitable for advanced graduate students and researchers in this area.

Monte Carlo methods are among the most used and useful computational tools available today, providing efficient and practical algorithims to solve a wide range of scientific and engineering problems. Applications covered in this book include optimization, finance, statistical mechanics, birth and death processes, and gambling systems. Explorations in Monte Carlo Methods provides a hands-on approach to learning this subject. Each new idea is carefully motivated by a realistic problem, thus leading from questions to theory via examples and numerical simulations. Programming exercises are integrated throughout the text as the primary vehicle for learning the material. Each chapter ends with a large collection of problems illustrating and directing the material. This book is suitable as a textbook for students of engineering and the sciences, as well as mathematics.

This textbook is a second edition of Evolutionary Algorithms for Solving Multi-Objective Problems, significantly expanded and adapted for the classroom. The various features of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms are presented here in an innovative and student-friendly fashion, incorporating state-of-the-art research. The book disseminates the application of evolutionary algorithm techniques to a variety of practical problems. It contains exhaustive appendices, index and bibliography and links to a complete set of teaching tutorials, exercises and solutions.

A long long time ago, echoing philosophical and aesthetic principles that existed since antiquity, William of Ockham enounced the principle of parsimony, better known today as Ockham's razor: "Entities should not be multiplied without neces sity. " This principle enabled scientists to select the "best" physical laws and theories to explain the workings of the Universe and continued to guide scienti?c research, leadingtobeautifulresultsliketheminimaldescriptionlength approachtostatistical inference and the related Kolmogorov complexity approach to pattern recognition. However, notions of complexity and description length are subjective concepts anddependonthelanguage"spoken"whenpresentingideasandresults. The?eldof sparse representations, that recently underwent a Big Bang like expansion, explic itly deals with the Yin Yang interplay between the parsimony of descriptions and the "language" or "dictionary" used in them, and it became an extremely exciting area of investigation. It already yielded a rich crop of mathematically pleasing, deep and beautiful results that quickly translated into a wealth of practical engineering applications. You are holding in your hands the ?rst guide book to Sparseland, and I am sure you'll ?nd in it both familiar and new landscapes to see and admire, as well as ex cellent pointers that will help you ?nd further valuable treasures. Enjoy the journey to Sparseland! Haifa, Israel, December 2009 Alfred M. Bruckstein vii Preface This book was originally written to serve as the material for an advanced one semester (fourteen 2 hour lectures) graduate course for engineering students at the Technion, Israel.

This book Algebraic Modeling Systems - Modeling and Solving Real World Optimization Problems - deals with the aspects of modeling and solving real-world optimization problems in a unique combination. It treats systematically the major algebraic modeling languages (AMLs) and modeling systems (AMLs) used to solve mathematical optimization problems. AMLs helped significantly to increase the usage of mathematical optimization in industry. Therefore it is logical consequence that the GOR (Gesellschaft fur Operations Research) Working Group Mathematical Optimization in Real Life had a second meeting devoted to AMLs, which, after 7 years, followed the original 71st Meeting of the GOR (Gesellschaft fur Operations Research) Working Group Mathematical Optimization in Real Life which was held under the title Modeling Languages in Mathematical Optimization during April 23-25, 2003 in the German Physics Society Conference Building in Bad Honnef, Germany. While the first meeting resulted in the book Modeling Languages in Mathematical Optimization, this book is an offspring of the 86th Meeting of the GOR working group which was again held in Bad Honnef under the title Modeling Languages in Mathematical Optimization."

Advances in the field of signal processing, nonlinear dynamics, statistics, and optimization theory, combined with marked improvement in instrumenta tion and development of computers systems, have made it possible to apply the power of mathematics to the task of understanding the human brain. This verita ble revolution already has resulted in widespread availability of high resolution neuroimaging devices in clinical as well as research settings. Breakthroughs in functional imaging are not far behind. Mathematical tech niques developed for the study of complex nonlinear systems and chaos already are being used to explore the complex nonlinear dynamics of human brain phys iology. Global optimization is being applied to data mining expeditions in an effort to find knowledge in the vast amount of information being generated by neuroimaging and neurophysiological investigations. These breakthroughs in the ability to obtain, store and analyze large datasets offer, for the first time, exciting opportunities to explore the mechanisms underlying normal brain func tion as well as the affects of diseases such as epilepsy, sleep disorders, movement disorders, and cognitive disorders that affect millions of people every year. Ap plication of these powerful tools to the study of the human brain requires, by necessity, collaboration among scientists, engineers, neurobiologists and clini cians. Each discipline brings to the table unique knowledge, unique approaches to problem solving, and a unique language.

Complex Social Networks is a newly emerging (hot) topic with applications in a variety of domains, such as communication networks, engineering networks, social networks, and biological networks. In the last decade, there has been an explosive growth of research on complex real-world networks, a theme that is becoming pervasive in many disciplines, ranging from mathematics and computer science to the social and biological sciences. Optimization of complex communication networks requires a deep understanding of the interplay between the dynamics of the physical network and the information dynamics within the network. Although there are a few books addressing social networks or complex networks, none of them has specially focused on the optimization perspective of studying these networks. This book provides the basic theory of complex networks with several new mathematical approaches and optimization techniques to design and analyze dynamic complex networks. A wide range of applications and optimization problems derived from research areas such as cellular and molecular chemistry, operations research, brain physiology, epidemiology, and ecology.

Genetic Algorithms: Principles and Perspectives: A Guide to GA Theory is a survey of some important theoretical contributions, many of which have been proposed and developed in the Foundations of Genetic Algorithms series of workshops. However, this theoretical work is still rather fragmented, and the authors believe that it is the right time to provide the field with a systematic presentation of the current state of theory in the form of a set of theoretical perspectives. The authors do this in the interest of providing students and researchers with a balanced foundational survey of some recent research on GAs. The scope of the book includes chapter-length discussions of Basic Principles, Schema Theory, "No Free Lunch", GAs and Markov Processes, Dynamical Systems Model, Statistical Mechanics Approximations, Predicting GA Performance, Landscapes and Test Problems.

This is a book on Linear-Fractional Programming (here and in what follows we will refer to it as "LFP"). The field of LFP, largely developed by Hungarian mathematician B. Martos and his associates in the 1960's, is concerned with problems of op timization. LFP problems deal with determining the best possible allo cation of available resources to meet certain specifications. In particular, they may deal with situations where a number of resources, such as people, materials, machines, and land, are available and are to be combined to yield several products. In linear-fractional programming, the goal is to determine a per missible allocation of resources that will maximize or minimize some specific showing, such as profit gained per unit of cost, or cost of unit of product produced, etc. Strictly speaking, linear-fractional programming is a special case of the broader field of Mathematical Programming. LFP deals with that class of mathematical programming problems in which the relations among the variables are linear: the con straint relations (i.e. the restrictions) must be in linear form and the function to be optimized (i.e. the objective function) must be a ratio of two linear functions.

This volume is a collection of contributions to the subject of multicriteria decision making and differential games, all of which are based wholly or in part on papers that have appeared in the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications. The authors take this opportunity to revise, update, or enlarge upon their earlier publications. The theory of multicriteria decision making and differential games is concerned with situations in which a single decision maker is faced with a multiplicity of usually incompatible criteria, performance indices or payoffs, or in which a number of decision makers, or players, must take into account criteria each of which depends on the decisions of all the decision makers. The first six chapters are devoted to situations involving a single decision maker, or a number of decision makers in complete collaboration and thus being in effect a single decision maker. Chapters I -IV treat various topics in the theory of domination structures and nondominated decisions. Chapter V presents a discussion of efficient, or Pareto-optimal, decisions. The approach to multicriteria decision making via preference relations is explored in Chapter VI. When there is more than one decision maker, cooperation, as well as noncooperation, is possible. Chapters VII and VIII deal with the topic of coalitions in a dynamic setting, while Chapters IX and X address the situation of two unequal decision makers, a leader and a follower.

Welcome to ANALYZE, designed to provide computer assistance for analyzing linear programs and their solutions. Chapter 1 gives an overview of ANALYZE and how to install it. It also describes how to get started and how to obtain further documentation and help on-line. Chapter 2 reviews the forms of linear programming models and describes the syntax of a model. One of the routine, but important, functions of ANALYZE is to enable convenient access to rows and columns in the matrix by conditional delineation. Chapter 3 illustrates simple queries, like DISPLAY, LIST, and PICTURE. This chapter also introduces the SUBMAT command level to define any submatrix by an arbitrary sequence of additions, deletions and reversals. Syntactic explanations and a schema view are also illustrated. Chapter 4 goes through some elementary exercises to demonstrate computer assisted analysis and introduce additional conventions of the ANALYZE language. Besides simple queries, it demonstrates the INTERPRT command, which automates the analysis process and gives English explanations of results. The last 2 exercises are diagnoses of elementary infeasible instances of a particular model. Chapter 5 progresses to some advanced uses of ANALYZE. The first is blocking to obtain macro views of the model and for finding embedded substructures, like a netform. The second is showing rates of substitution described by the basic equations. Then, the use of the REDUCE and BASIS commands are illustrated for a variety of applications, including solution analysis, infeasibility diagnosis, and redundancy detection.

Sensitivity analysis and optimal shape design are key issues in engineering that have been affected by advances in numerical tools currently available. This book, and its supplementary online files, presents basic optimization techniques that can be used to compute the sensitivity of a given design to local change, or to improve its performance by local optimization of these data. The relevance and scope of these techniques have improved dramatically in recent years because of progress in discretization strategies, optimization algorithms, automatic differentiation, software availability, and the power of personal computers. Numerical Methods in Sensitivity Analysis and Shape Optimization will be of interest to graduate students involved in mathematical modeling and simulation, as well as engineers and researchers in applied mathematics looking for an up-to-date introduction to optimization techniques, sensitivity analysis, and optimal design.

Many decision problems in Operations Research are defined on temporal networks, that is, workflows of time-consuming tasks whose processing order is constrained by precedence relations. For example, temporal networks are used to model projects, computer applications, digital circuits and production processes. Optimization problems arise in temporal networks when a decision maker wishes to determine a temporal arrangement of the tasks and/or a resource assignment that optimizes some network characteristic (e.g. the time required to complete all tasks). The parameters of these optimization problems (e.g. the task durations) are typically unknown at the time the decision problem arises. This monograph investigates solution techniques for optimization problems in temporal networks that explicitly account for this parameter uncertainty. We study several formulations, each of which requires different information about the uncertain problem parameters.

When analyzing systems with a large number of parameters, the dimen sion of the original system may present insurmountable difficulties for the analysis. It may then be convenient to reformulate the original system in terms of substantially fewer aggregated variables, or macrovariables. In other words, an original system with an n-dimensional vector of states is reformulated as a system with a vector of dimension much less than n. The aggregated variables are either readily defined and processed, or the aggregated system may be considered as an approximate model for the orig inal system. In the latter case, the operation of the original system can be exhaustively analyzed within the framework of the aggregated model, and one faces the problems of defining the rules for introducing macrovariables, specifying loss of information and accuracy, recovering original variables from aggregates, etc. We consider also in detail the so-called iterative aggregation approach. It constructs an iterative process, at. every step of which a macroproblem is solved that is simpler than the original problem because of its lower dimension. Aggregation weights are then updated, and the procedure passes to the next step. Macrovariables are commonly used in coordinating problems of hierarchical optimization."

Discrete optimization problems are everywhere, from traditional operations research planning problems, such as scheduling, facility location, and network design; to computer science problems in databases; to advertising issues in viral marketing. Yet most such problems are NP-hard. Thus unless P = NP, there are no efficient algorithms to find optimal solutions to such problems. This book shows how to design approximation algorithms: efficient algorithms that find provably near-optimal solutions. The book is organized around central algorithmic techniques for designing approximation algorithms, including greedy and local search algorithms, dynamic programming, linear and semidefinite programming, and randomization. Each chapter in the first part of the book is devoted to a single algorithmic technique, which is then applied to several different problems. The second part revisits the techniques but offers more sophisticated treatments of them. The book also covers methods for proving that optimization problems are hard to approximate. Designed as a textbook for graduate-level algorithms courses, the book will also serve as a reference for researchers interested in the heuristic solution of discrete optimization problems.

With the advent of approximation algorithms for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems, several techniques from exact optimization such as the primal-dual method have proven their staying power and versatility. This book describes a simple and powerful method that is iterative in essence, and similarly useful in a variety of settings for exact and approximate optimization. The authors highlight the commonality and uses of this method to prove a variety of classical polyhedral results on matchings, trees, matroids, and flows. The presentation style is elementary enough to be accessible to anyone with exposure to basic linear algebra and graph theory, making the book suitable for introductory courses in combinatorial optimization at the upper undergraduate and beginning graduate levels. Discussions of advanced applications illustrate their potential for future application in research in approximation algorithms.

Nonsmooth energy functions govern phenomena which occur frequently in nature and in all areas of life. They constitute a fascinating subject in mathematics and permit the rational understanding of yet unsolved or partially solved questions in mechanics, engineering and economics. This is the first book to provide a complete and rigorous presentation of the quasidifferentiability approach to nonconvex, possibly nonsmooth, energy functions, of the derivation and study of the corresponding variational expressions in mechanics, engineering and economics, and of their numerical treatment. The new variational formulations derived are illustrated by many interesting numerical problems. The techniques presented will permit the reader to check any solution obtained by other heuristic techniques for nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. A civil, mechanical or aeronautical engineer can find in the book the only existing mathematically sound technique for the formulation and study of nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. Audience: The book will be of interest to pure and applied mathematicians, physicists, researchers in mechanics, civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineers, structural analysts and software developers. It is also suitable for graduate courses in nonlinear mechanics, nonsmooth analysis, applied optimization, control, calculus of variations and computational mechanics.

4th Party Cyber Logistics For Air Cargo is a technical discussion for researchers and practitioners to understand the issues, models, and future directions of air cargo logistics in the cyber era. This book introduces the many aspects of planning and control of air cargo logistics processes in an e-Business environment. The authors approach this subject matter from the perspective of the logistics service providers. There is tremendous potential of achieving industry-wide collaboration between agents of the air cargo industry via an e-Business community platform. At the same time, there are many intellectually challenging problems regarding the architecture, ownership, decision support environment, and knowledge management of such an e-Business platform.
The authors provide an evolutionary view to conceptualize the developments of websites where e-Commerce activities and e-Business activities co-exist. Four Web eras are detailed, providing an impetus for the development of frameworks of an e-Business platform for air cargo logistics, or e-Platform. The conceptual framework captures the new elements in cyber logistics and what the framework can do for the industry.

Optimization problems in practice are diverse and evolve over time, giving rise to - quirements both for ready-to-use optimization software packages and for optimization software libraries, which provide more or less adaptable building blocks for app- cation-specific software systems. In order to apply optimization methods to a new type of problem, corresponding models and algorithms have to be "coded" so that they are accessible to a computer. One way to achieve this step is the use of a mod- ing language. Such modeling systems provide an excellent interface between models and solvers, but only for a limited range of model types (in some cases, for example, linear) due, in part, to limitations imposed by the solvers. Furthermore, while m- eling systems especially for heuristic search are an active research topic, it is still an open question as to whether such an approach may be generally successful. Modeling languages treat the solvers as a "black box" with numerous controls. Due to variations, for example, with respect to the pursued objective or specific problem properties, - dressing real-world problems often requires special purpose methods. Thus, we are faced with the difficulty of efficiently adapting and applying appropriate methods to these problems. Optimization software libraries are intended to make it relatively easy and cost effective to incorporate advanced planning methods in application-specific software systems. A general classification provides a distinction between callable packages, nume- cal libraries, and component libraries.

Evolutionary computation techniques have attracted increasing att- tions in recent years for solving complex optimization problems. They are more robust than traditional methods based on formal logics or mathematical programming for many real world OR/MS problems. E- lutionary computation techniques can deal with complex optimization problems better than traditional optimization techniques. However, most papers on the application of evolutionary computation techniques to Operations Research /Management Science (OR/MS) problems have scattered around in different journals and conference proceedings. They also tend to focus on a very special and narrow topic. It is the right time that an archival book series publishes a special volume which - cludes critical reviews of the state-of-art of those evolutionary com- tation techniques which have been found particularly useful for OR/MS problems, and a collection of papers which represent the latest devel- ment in tackling various OR/MS problems by evolutionary computation techniques. This special volume of the book series on Evolutionary - timization aims at filling in this gap in the current literature. The special volume consists of invited papers written by leading - searchers in the field. All papers were peer reviewed by at least two recognised reviewers. The book covers the foundation as well as the practical side of evolutionary optimization.

This book deals with nonsmooth structures arising within the optimization setting. It considers four optimization problems, namely, mathematical programs with complementarity constraints, general semi-infinite programming problems, mathematical programs with vanishing constraints and bilevel optimization. The author uses the topological approach and topological invariants of corresponding feasible sets are investigated. Moreover, the critical point theory in the sense of Morse is presented and parametric and stability issues are considered. The material progresses systematically and establishes a comprehensive theory for a rather broad class of optimization problems tailored to their particular type of nonsmoothness. Topological Aspects of Nonsmooth Optimization will benefit researchers and graduate students in applied mathematics, especially those working in optimization theory, nonsmooth analysis, algebraic topology and singularity theory.

On March 15, 2002 we held a workshop on network interdiction and the more general problem of stochastic mixed integer programming at the University of California, Davis. Jesus De Loera and I co-chaired the event, which included presentations of on-going research and discussion. At the workshop, we decided to produce a volume of timely work on the topics. This volume is the result. Each chapter represents state-of-the-art research and all of them were refereed by leading investigators in the respective fields. Problems - sociated with protecting and attacking computer, transportation, and social networks gain importance as the world becomes more dep- dent on interconnected systems. Optimization models that address the stochastic nature of these problems are an important part of the research agenda. This work relies on recent efforts to provide methods for - dressing stochastic mixed integer programs. The book is organized with interdiction papers first and the stochastic programming papers in the second part. A nice overview of the papers is provided in the Foreward written by Roger Wets.

Potential Function Methods For Approximately Solving Linear Programming Problems breaks new ground in linear programming theory. The book draws on the research developments in three broad areas: linear and integer programming, numerical analysis, and the computational architectures which enable speedy, high-level algorithm design. During the last ten years, a new body of research within the field of optimization research has emerged, which seeks to develop good approximation algorithms for classes of linear programming problems. This work both has roots in fundamental areas of mathematical programming and is also framed in the context of the modern theory of algorithms. The result of this work, in which Daniel Bienstock has been very much involved, has been a family of algorithms with solid theoretical foundations and with growing experimental success. This book will examine these algorithms, starting with some of the very earliest examples, and through the latest theoretical and computational developments.

Modeling by Object-Driven Linear Elemental Relations (MODLER) is a computer language for representing linear programming models, completely separate from instances defined by data realizations. It also includes representations of binary variables and logical constraints, which arise naturally in large-scale planning and operational decision support. The basic input to MODLER is a model file, and its basic output is a matrix file that is in a standard (MPS) format for most optimizers and for ANALYZE and RANDMOD. MODLER can also generate a syntax file for ANALYZE to enable automatic translation of activities and constraints into English for intelligent analysis support. The book is accompanied by a DOS version of MODLER on 3.5 inch diskettes and A Laboratory Manual for Teaching Linear Programming is available upon request.