This book analyses the changes to the regulation of everyday life that have taken place as a result of datafication, the ever-growing analytical, predictive, and structuring role of algorithms, and the prominence of the platform economy. This new form of regulation - algorithmic governance - ranges from nudging individuals towards predefined outcomes to outright structuration of behaviour through digital architecture. The author reveals the strength and pervasiveness of algorithmic politics through a comparison with the main traditional form of regulation: law. These changes are subsequently demonstrated to reflect a broader shift away from anthropocentric accounts of the world. In doing so, the book adopts a posthumanist framework which focuses on deep embeddedness and interactions between humans, the natural environment, technology, and code.

Using the O.D.D. (Overview, Design concepts, Detail) protocol, this title explores the role of agent-based modeling in predicting the feasibility of various approaches to sustainability. The chapters incorporated in this volume consist of real case studies to illustrate the utility of agent-based modeling and complexity theory in discovering a path to more efficient and sustainable lifestyles. The topics covered within include: households' attitudes toward recycling, designing decision trees for representing sustainable behaviors, negotiation-based parking allocation, auction-based traffic signal control, and others. This selection of papers will be of interest to social scientists who wish to learn more about agent-based modeling as well as experts in the field of agent-based modeling.

Mathematical Puzzle Tales from Mount Olympus uses fascinating tales from Greek Mythology as the background for introducing mathematics puzzles to the general public. A background in high school mathematics will be ample preparation for using this book, and it should appeal to anyone who enjoys puzzles and recreational mathematics. Features: Combines the arts and science, and emphasizes the fact that mathematics straddles both domains. Great resource for students preparing for mathematics competitions, and the trainers of such students.

Mathematically, most of the interesting optimization problems can be formulated to optimize some objective function, subject to some equality and/or inequality constraints. This book introduces some classical and basic results of optimization theory, including nonlinear programming with Lagrange multiplier method, the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker method, Fritz John's method, problems with convex or quasi-convex constraints, and linear programming with geometric method and simplex method.A slim book such as this which touches on major aspects of optimization theory will be very much needed for most readers. We present nonlinear programming, convex programming, and linear programming in a self-contained manner. This book is for a one-semester course for upper level undergraduate students or first/second year graduate students. It should also be useful for researchers working on many interdisciplinary areas other than optimization.

The connected dominating set has been a classic subject studied in graph theory since 1975. Since the 1990s, it has been found to have important applications in communication networks, especially in wireless networks, as a virtual backbone. Motivated from those applications, many papers have been published in the literature during last 15 years. Now, the connected dominating set has become a hot research topic in computer science. In this book, we are going to collect recent developments on the connected dominating set, which presents the state of the art in the study of connected dominating sets. The book consists of 16 chapters. Except the 1st one, each chapter is devoted to one problem, and consists of three parts, motivation and overview, problem complexity analysis, and approximation algorithm designs, which will lead the reader to see clearly about the background, formulation, existing important research results, and open problems. Therefore, this would be a very valuable reference book for researchers in computer science and operations research, especially in areas of theoretical computer science, computer communication networks, combinatorial optimization, and discrete mathematics.

This book introduces the reader to important concepts in modern applied analysis, such as homogenization, gradient flows on metric spaces, geometric evolution, Gamma-convergence tools, applications of geometric measure theory, properties of interfacial energies, etc. This is done by tackling a prototypical problem of interfacial evolution in heterogeneous media, where these concepts are introduced and elaborated in a natural and constructive way. At the same time, the analysis introduces open issues of a general and fundamental nature, at the core of important applications. The focus on two-dimensional lattices as a prototype of heterogeneous media allows visual descriptions of concepts and methods through a large amount of illustrations.

This self-contained textbook discusses all major topics in functional analysis. Combining classical materials with new methods, it supplies numerous relevant solved examples and problems and discusses the applications of functional analysis in diverse fields. The book is unique in its scope, and a variety of applications of functional analysis and operator-theoretic methods are devoted to each area of application. Each chapter includes a set of problems, some of which are routine and elementary, and some of which are more advanced. The book is primarily intended as a textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in applied mathematics and engineering. It offers several attractive features making it ideally suited for courses on functional analysis intended to provide a basic introduction to the subject and the impact of functional analysis on applied and computational mathematics, nonlinear functional analysis and optimization. It introduces emerging topics like wavelets, Gabor system, inverse problems and application to signal and image processing.

This edited volume illustrates the connections between machine learning techniques, black box optimization, and no-free lunch theorems. Each of the thirteen contributions focuses on the commonality and interdisciplinary concepts as well as the fundamentals needed to fully comprehend the impact of individual applications and problems. Current theoretical, algorithmic, and practical methods used are provided to stimulate a new effort towards innovative and efficient solutions. The book is intended for beginners who wish to achieve a broad overview of optimization methods and also for more experienced researchers as well as researchers in mathematics, optimization, operations research, quantitative logistics, data analysis, and statistics, who will benefit from access to a quick reference to key topics and methods. The coverage ranges from mathematically rigorous methods to heuristic and evolutionary approaches in an attempt to equip the reader with different viewpoints of the same problem.

This book develops the concepts of various unique optimization techniques in the crisp and fuzzy environment. It provides an extensive overview of geometric programming methods within a unifying framework, and presents an in-depth discussion of the modified geometric programming problem, fuzzy geometric programming, as well as new insights into goal geometric programming. With numerous examples and exercises together with detailed solutions for several problems, the book also addresses fuzzy multi-objective geometric programming techniques. Geometric programming, which falls into the general class of signomial problems, has applications across disciplines, from engineering to economics, and is extremely useful in applications of a variety of optimization problems. Organized into thirteen chapters, this book is a valuable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students and researchers in applied mathematics and engineering.

Mathematical Optimization Terminology: A Comprehensive Glossary of Terms is a practical book with the essential formulations, illustrative examples, real-world applications and main references on the topic. This book helps readers gain a more practical understanding of optimization, enabling them to apply it to their algorithms. This book also addresses the need for a practical publication that introduces these concepts and techniques.

Although valued for its ability to allow teams to collaborate and foster coalitional behaviors among the participants, game theory's application to networking systems is not without challenges. Distributed Strategic Learning for Wireless Engineers illuminates the promise of learning in dynamic games as a tool for analyzing network evolution and underlines the potential pitfalls and difficulties likely to be encountered. Establishing the link between several theories, this book demonstrates what is needed to learn strategic interaction in wireless networks under uncertainty, randomness, and time delays. It addresses questions such as: How much information is enough for effective distributed decision making? Is having more information always useful in terms of system performance? What are the individual learning performance bounds under outdated and imperfect measurement? What are the possible dynamics and outcomes if the players adopt different learning patterns? If convergence occurs, what is the convergence time of heterogeneous learning? What are the issues of hybrid learning? How can one develop fast and efficient learning schemes in scenarios where some players have more information than the others? What is the impact of risk-sensitivity in strategic learning systems? How can one construct learning schemes in a dynamic environment in which one of the players do not observe a numerical value of its own-payoffs but only a signal of it? How can one learn "unstable" equilibria and global optima in a fully distributed manner? The book provides an explicit description of how players attempt to learn over time about the game and about the behavior of others. It focuses on finite and infinite systems, where the interplay among the individual adjustments undertaken by the different players generates different learning dynamics, heterogeneous learning, risk-sensitive learning, and hybrid dynamics.

Herbert Scarf is a highly esteemed distinguished American economist. He is internationally famous for his early epoch-making work on optimal inventory policies and his highly influential study with Andrew Clark on optimal policies for a multi-echelon inventory problem, which initiated the important and flourishing field of supply chain management. Equally, he has gained world recognition for his classic study on the stability of the Walrasian price adjustment processes and his fundamental analysis on the relationship between the core and the set of competitive equilibria (the so-called Edgeworth conjecture). Further achievements include his remarkable sufficient condition for the existence of a core in non-transferable utility games and general exchange economies, his seminal paper with Lloyd Shapley on housing markets, and his pioneering study on increasing returns and models of production in the presence of indivisibilities. All in all, however, the name of Scarf is always remembered as a synonym for the computation of economic equilibria and fixed points. In the early 1960s he invented a path-breaking technique for computing equilibrium prices.This work has generated a major research field in economics termed Applied General Equilibrium Analysis and a corresponding area in operations research known as Simplicial Fixed Point Methods. This book comprises all his research articles and consists of four volumes. This volume collects Herbert Scarf's papers in the area of Operations Research and Management.

Predictive Control is aimed at students wishing to learn predictive control, as well as teachers, engineers and technicians of the profession. The book proposes a simple predictive controller where the control laws are given in clear text that requires no calculations. Adjustment, reduced to one or two parameters, is particularly easy, by means of charts, thus allowing the operator to choose the horizon according to the desired performances. Implementation is discussed in detail in two forms: RS or RST controller in z-1, and pseudo-code realization algorithms for a complete program (model and controller). The book is simple and practical, with the aim of the industrial implementation of many processes: Broida models, Strejc, integrators, dual integrators, with delay, or with inverse response. All settings are abundantly illustrated with response curves.

This book offers a rigorous mathematical analysis of fuzzy geometrical ideas. It demonstrates the use of fuzzy points for interpreting an imprecise location and for representing an imprecise line by a fuzzy line. Further, it shows that a fuzzy circle can be used to represent a circle when its description is not known precisely, and that fuzzy conic sections can be used to describe imprecise conic sections. Moreover, it discusses fundamental notions on fuzzy geometry, including the concepts of fuzzy line segment and fuzzy distance, as well as key fuzzy operations, and includes several diagrams and numerical illustrations to make the topic more understandable. The book fills an important gap in the literature, providing the first comprehensive reference guide on the fuzzy mathematics of imprecise image subsets and imprecise geometrical objects. Mainly intended for researchers active in fuzzy optimization, it also includes chapters relevant for those working on fuzzy image processing and pattern recognition. Furthermore, it is a valuable resource for beginners interested in basic operations on fuzzy numbers, and can be used in university courses on fuzzy geometry, dealing with imprecise locations, imprecise lines, imprecise circles, and imprecise conic sections.

This is a series of interdisciplinary conferences in mathematics, philosophy, computer science and linguistics. The main goal is to re-establish the traditionally strong links between these areas of research that have been lost in the past decades. The second conference in the series had the subtitle Applications of Mathematical Logic in Philosophy and Linguistics and brought speakers from all parts of the formal sciences together to give a holistic view of how mathematical methods can improve our philosophical and technical understanding of language and scientific discourse, ranging from the theoretical level up to applications in language recognition software.

The structures of the world's national and international, political and economic institutions have largely resulted from intuitive and ad hoc organization with reforms taking place on a costly trial-and-error basis. This book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the tools which can be used for a more rational and formal approach to institutional design. As new institutions and, indeed, new national governments are being formed and developed all the time, there is a considerable need for formal models that can facilitate their design. This book offers conceptual approaches and theories that shed new light on how various social and political institutions can emerge as the outcome of goal-directed rational behaviour. The author provides tools for evaluating existing institutions and for setting up new ones, demonstrating the applicability of decision and game theoretic tools, social choice theory and mechanism design to the construction of political and economic institutions. Using these approaches he particularly discusses the practical implications for the design of institutions in the European Union. This important book will be welcomed by students and scholars interested in government and political science, rational choice theory, methodology in the social sciences, and the microeconomics of rational behaviour.

Introduction to Nature-Inspired Optimization brings together many of the innovative mathematical methods for non-linear optimization that have their origins in the way various species behave in order to optimize their chances of survival. The book describes each method, examines their strengths and weaknesses, and where appropriate, provides the MATLAB code to give practical insight into the detailed structure of these methods and how they work. Nature-inspired algorithms emulate processes that are found in the natural world, spurring interest for optimization. Lindfield/Penny provide concise coverage to all the major algorithms, including genetic algorithms, artificial bee colony algorithms, ant colony optimization and the cuckoo search algorithm, among others. This book provides a quick reference to practicing engineers, researchers and graduate students who work in the field of optimization.

The interaction between mathematicians, statisticians and econometricians working in actuarial sciences and finance is producing numerous meaningful scientific results. This volume introduces new ideas, in the form of four-page papers, presented at the international conference Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Actuarial Sciences and Finance (MAF), held at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain), 4th-6th April 2018. The book covers a wide variety of subjects in actuarial science and financial fields, all discussed in the context of the cooperation between the three quantitative approaches. The topics include: actuarial models; analysis of high frequency financial data; behavioural finance; carbon and green finance; credit risk methods and models; dynamic optimization in finance; financial econometrics; forecasting of dynamical actuarial and financial phenomena; fund performance evaluation; insurance portfolio risk analysis; interest rate models; longevity risk; machine learning and soft-computing in finance; management in insurance business; models and methods for financial time series analysis, models for financial derivatives; multivariate techniques for financial markets analysis; optimization in insurance; pricing; probability in actuarial sciences, insurance and finance; real world finance; risk management; solvency analysis; sovereign risk; static and dynamic portfolio selection and management; trading systems. This book is a valuable resource for academics, PhD students, practitioners, professionals and researchers, and is also of interest to other readers with quantitative background knowledge.

Finite-dimensional optimization problems occur throughout the mathematical sciences. The majority of these problems cannot be solved analytically. This introduction to optimization attempts to strike a balance between presentation of mathematical theory and development of numerical algorithms. Building on students' skills in calculus and linear algebra, the text provides a rigorous exposition without undue abstraction. Its stress on statistical applications will be especially appealing to graduate students of statistics and biostatistics. The intended audience also includes students in applied mathematics, computational biology, computer science, economics, and physics who want to see rigorous mathematics combined with real applications. In this second edition the emphasis remains on finite-dimensional optimization. New material has been added on the MM algorithm, block descent and ascent, and the calculus of variations. Convex calculus is now treated in much greater depth. Advanced topics such as the Fenchel conjugate, subdifferentials, duality, feasibility, alternating projections, projected gradient methods, exact penalty methods, and Bregman iteration will equip students with the essentials for understanding modern data mining techniques in high dimensions.

In the quarter of a century since three mathematicians and game theorists collaborated to create Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, the book has become the definitive work on the subject of mathematical games. Now carefully revised and broken down into four volumes to accommodate new developments, the Second Edition retains the original's wealth of wit and wisdom. The authors' insightful strategies, blended with their witty and irreverent style, make reading a profitable pleasure. In Volume 4, the authors present a Diamond of a find, covering one-player games such as Solitaire.

Herbert Scarf is a highly esteemed distinguished American economist. He is internationally famous for his early epoch-making work on optimal inventory policies and his highly influential study with Andrew Clark on optimal policies for a multi-echelon inventory problem, which initiated the important and flourishing field of supply chain management. Equally, he has gained world recognition for his classic study on the stability of the Walrasian price adjustment processes and his fundamental analysis on the relationship between the core and the set of competitive equilibria (the so-called Edgeworth conjecture). Further achievements include his remarkable sufficient condition for the existence of a core in non-transferable utility games and general exchange economies, his seminal paper with Lloyd Shapley on housing markets, and his pioneering study on increasing returns and models of production in the presence of indivisibilities. All in all, however, the name of Scarf is always remembered as a synonym for the computation of economic equilibria and fixed points. In the early 1960s he invented a path-breaking technique for computing equilibrium prices. This work has generated a major research field in economics termed Applied General Equilibrium Analysis and a corresponding area in operations research known as Simplicial Fixed Point Methods. This book comprises all his research articles and consists of four volumes. This volume collects Herbert Scarf's papers in the area of Economics and Game Theory.

Calculus Without Derivatives expounds the foundations and recent advances in nonsmooth analysis, a powerful compound of mathematical tools that obviates the usual smoothness assumptions. This textbook also provides significant tools and methods towards applications, in particular optimization problems. Whereas most books on this subject focus on a particular theory, this text takes a general approach including all main theories. In order to be self-contained, the book includes three chapters of preliminary material, each of which can be used as an independent course if needed. The first chapter deals with metric properties, variational principles, decrease principles, methods of error bounds, calmness and metric regularity. The second one presents the classical tools of differential calculus and includes a section about the calculus of variations. The third contains a clear exposition of convex analysis.

In many decision problems, e.g. from the area of production and logistics manage ment, the evaluation of alternatives and the determination of an optimal or at least suboptimal solution is an important but dif?cult task. For most such problems no ef?cient algorithm is known and classical approaches of Operations Research like Mixed Integer Linear Programming or Dynamic Pro gramming are often of limited use due to excessive computation time. Therefore, dedicated heuristic solution approaches have been developed which aim at providing good solutions in reasonable time for a given problem. However, such methods have two major drawbacks: First, they are tailored to a speci?c prob lem and their adaption to other problems is dif?cult and in many cases even impos sible. Second, they are typically designed to "build" one single solution in the most effective way, whereas most decision problems have a vast number of feasible solu tions. Hence usually the chances are high that there exist better ones. To overcome these limitations, problem independent search strategies, in particular metaheuris tics, have been proposed. This book provides an elementary step by step introduction to metaheuristics focusing on the search concepts they are based on. The ?rst part demonstrates un derlying concepts of search strategies using a simple example optimization problem.

In full generality, minimizing a polynomial function over a closed semi-algebraic set requires complex mathematical equations. This book explains recent developments from singularity theory and semi-algebraic geometry for studying polynomial optimization problems. Classes of generic problems are defined in a simple and elegant manner by using only the two basic (and relatively simple) notions of Newton polyhedron and non-degeneracy conditions associated with a given polynomial optimization problem. These conditions are well known in singularity theory, however, they are rarely considered within the optimization community.Explanations focus on critical points and tangencies of polynomial optimization, Hoelderian error bounds for polynomial systems, Frank-Wolfe-type theorem for polynomial programs and well-posedness in polynomial optimization. It then goes on to look at optimization for the different types of polynomials. Through this text graduate students, PhD students and researchers of mathematics will be provided with the knowledge necessary to use semi-algebraic geometry in optimization.

This book presents an introduction to variational analysis, a field which unifies theories and techniques developed in calculus of variations, optimization, and control, and covers convex analysis, nonsmooth analysis, and set-valued analysis. It focuses on problems with constraints, the analysis of which involves set-valued mappings and functions that are not differentiable. Applications of variational analysis are interdisciplinary, ranging from financial planning to steering a flying object. The book is addressed to graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in mathematical sciences, engineering, economics, and finance. A typical reader of the book should be familiar with multivariable calculus and linear algebra. Some basic knowledge in optimization, control, and elementary functional analysis is desirable, but all necessary background material is included in the book.