Electoral promises help to win votes and political candidates, or parties should strategically choose what they can deliver to win an election. Past game-theoretical studies tend to ignore electoral promises and this book sheds illuminating light on the functions and effects of electoral promises on policies or electoral outcomes through game theory models. This book provides a basic framework for game-theoretical analysis of electoral promises. The book also includes cases to illustrate real life applications of these theories.

The Moment-SOS hierarchy is a powerful methodology that is used to solve the Generalized Moment Problem (GMP) where the list of applications in various areas of Science and Engineering is almost endless. Initially designed for solving polynomial optimization problems (the simplest example of the GMP), it applies to solving any instance of the GMP whose description only involves semi-algebraic functions and sets. It consists of solving a sequence (a hierarchy) of convex relaxations of the initial problem, and each convex relaxation is a semidefinite program whose size increases in the hierarchy.The goal of this book is to describe in a unified and detailed manner how this methodology applies to solving various problems in different areas ranging from Optimization, Probability, Statistics, Signal Processing, Computational Geometry, Control, Optimal Control and Analysis of a certain class of nonlinear PDEs. For each application, this unconventional methodology differs from traditional approaches and provides an unusual viewpoint. Each chapter is devoted to a particular application, where the methodology is thoroughly described and illustrated on some appropriate examples.The exposition is kept at an appropriate level of detail to aid the different levels of readers not necessarily familiar with these tools, to better know and understand this methodology.

This successful book provides in its second edition an interactive and illustrative guide from two-dimensional curve fitting to multidimensional clustering and machine learning with neural networks or support vector machines. Along the way topics like mathematical optimization or evolutionary algorithms are touched. All concepts and ideas are outlined in a clear cut manner with graphically depicted plausibility arguments and a little elementary mathematics.The major topics are extensively outlined with exploratory examples and applications. The primary goal is to be as illustrative as possible without hiding problems and pitfalls but to address them. The character of an illustrative cookbook is complemented with specific sections that address more fundamental questions like the relation between machine learning and human intelligence.All topics are completely demonstrated with the computing platform Mathematica and the Computational Intelligence Packages (CIP), a high-level function library developed with Mathematica's programming language on top of Mathematica's algorithms. CIP is open-source and the detailed code used throughout the book is freely accessible.The target readerships are students of (computer) science and engineering as well as scientific practitioners in industry and academia who deserve an illustrative introduction. Readers with programming skills may easily port or customize the provided code. "'From curve fitting to machine learning' is ... a useful book. ... It contains the basic formulas of curve fitting and related subjects and throws in, what is missing in so many books, the code to reproduce the results.All in all this is an interesting and useful book both for novice as well as expert readers. For the novice it is a good introductory book and the expert will appreciate the many examples and working code". Leslie A. Piegl (Review of the first edition, 2012).

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The formation of coalitions to achieve both collaborative and competitive goals is a phenomenon we see all around us. The list is long and varied: production cartels, political lobbies, customs unions, environmental coalitions, and ethnic alliances are just a few everyday instances. Drawing upon and extending his inaugural Lipsey Lectures at the University of Essex, Debraj Ray looks at coalition formation from the perspective of game theory. How are agreements determined? Which coalitions will form? And are such agreements invariably efficient from a social perspective? Ray brings together developments in both cooperative and noncooperative game theory to study the analytics of coalition formation and binding agreements. This book concentrates on pure theory, but discusses several potential applications, such as oligopoly and the provision of public goods.

Optimization from Human Genes to Cutting Edge Technologies The challenges faced by industry today are so complex that they can only be solved through the help and participation of optimization ex perts. For example, many industries in e-commerce, finance, medicine, and engineering, face several computational challenges due to the mas sive data sets that arise in their applications. Some of the challenges include, extended memory algorithms and data structures, new program ming environments, software systems, cryptographic protocols, storage devices, data compression, mathematical and statistical methods for knowledge mining, and information visualization. With advances in computer and information systems technologies, and many interdisci plinary efforts, many of the "data avalanche challenges" are beginning to be addressed. Optimization is the most crucial component in these efforts. Nowadays, the main task of optimization is to investigate the cutting edge frontiers of these technologies and systems and find the best solutions for their realization. Optimization principles are evident in nature (the perfect optimizer) and appeared early in human history. Did you ever watch how a spider catches a fly or a mosquito? Usually a spider hides at the edge of its net. When a fly or a mosquito hits the net the spider will pick up each line in the net to choose the tense line? Some biologists explain that the line gives the shortest path from the spider to its prey."

The book presents new results and applications of the topological derivative method in control theory, topology optimization and inverse problems. It also introduces the theory in singularly perturbed geometrical domains using selected examples. Recognized as a robust numerical technique in engineering applications, such as topology optimization, inverse problems, imaging processing, multi-scale material design and mechanical modeling including damage and fracture evolution phenomena, the topological derivative method is based on the asymptotic approximations of solutions to elliptic boundary value problems combined with mathematical programming tools. The book presents the first order topology design algorithm and its applications in topology optimization, and introduces the second order Newton-type reconstruction algorithm based on higher order topological derivatives for solving inverse reconstruction problems. It is intended for researchers and students in applied mathematics and computational mechanics interested in the mathematical aspects of the topological derivative method as well as its applications in computational mechanics.

This book gathers carefully selected works in Mathematical Economics, on myriad topics including General Equilibrium, Game Theory, Economic Growth, Welfare, Social Choice Theory, Finance. It sheds light on the ongoing discussions that have brought together leading researchers from Latin America and Southern Europe at recent conferences in venues like Porto, Portugal; Athens, Greece; and Guanajuato, Mexico. With this volume, the editors not only contribute to the advancement of research in these areas, but also inspire other scholars around the globe to collaborate and research these vibrant, emerging topics.

Current and historical research methods in approximation theory are presented in this book beginning with the 1800s and following the evolution of approximation theory via the refinement and extension of classical methods and ending with recent techniques and methodologies. Graduate students, postdocs, and researchers in mathematics, specifically those working in the theory of functions, approximation theory, geometric function theory, and optimization will find new insights as well as a guide to advanced topics. The chapters in this book are grouped into four themes; the first, polynomials (Chapters 1 -8), includes inequalities for polynomials and rational functions, orthogonal polynomials, and location of zeros. The second, inequalities and extremal problems are discussed in Chapters 9 -13. The third, approximation of functions, involves the approximants being polynomials, rational functions, and other types of functions and are covered in Chapters 14 -19. The last theme, quadrature, cubature and applications, comprises the final three chapters and includes an article coauthored by Rahman. This volume serves as a memorial volume to commemorate the distinguished career of Qazi Ibadur Rahman (1934-2013) of the Universite de Montreal. Rahman was considered by his peers as one of the prominent experts in analytic theory of polynomials and entire functions. The novelty of his work lies in his profound abilities and skills in applying techniques from other areas of mathematics, such as optimization theory and variational principles, to obtain final answers to countless open problems.

The H control has been one of the important robust control approaches since the 1980s. This book extends the area to nonlinear stochastic H2/H control, and studies more complex and practically useful mixed H2/H controller synthesis rather than the pure H control. Different from the commonly used convex optimization method, this book applies the Nash game approach to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the mixed H2/H control. Researchers will benefit from our detailed exposition of the stochastic mixed H2/H control theory, while practitioners can apply our efficient algorithms to address their practical problems.

Nature-Inspired Optimization Algorithms, a comprehensive work on the most popular optimization algorithms based on nature, starts with an overview of optimization going from the classical to the latest swarm intelligence algorithm. Nature has a rich abundance of flora and fauna that inspired the development of optimization techniques, providing us with simple solutions to complex problems in an effective and adaptive manner. The study of the intelligent survival strategies of animals, birds, and insects in a hostile and ever-changing environment has led to the development of techniques emulating their behavior. This book is a lucid description of fifteen important existing optimization algorithms based on swarm intelligence and superior in performance. It is a valuable resource for engineers, researchers, faculty, and students who are devising optimum solutions to any type of problem ranging from computer science to economics and covering diverse areas that require maximizing output and minimizing resources. This is the crux of all optimization algorithms. Features: Detailed description of the algorithms along with pseudocode and flowchart Easy translation to program code that is also readily available in Mathworks website for some of the algorithms Simple examples demonstrating the optimization strategies are provided to enhance understanding Standard applications and benchmark datasets for testing and validating the algorithms are included This book is a reference for undergraduate and post-graduate students. It will be useful to faculty members teaching optimization. It is also a comprehensive guide for researchers who are looking for optimizing resources in attaining the best solution to a problem. The nature-inspired optimization algorithms are unconventional, and this makes them more efficient than their traditional counterparts.

Computing Equilibria and Fixed Points is devoted to the computation of equilibria, fixed points and stationary points. This volume is written with three goals in mind: (i) To give a comprehensive introduction to fixed point methods and to the definition and construction of Gr bner bases; (ii) To discuss several interesting applications of these methods in the fields of general equilibrium theory, game theory, mathematical programming, algebra and symbolic computation; (iii) To introduce several advanced fixed point and stationary point theorems. These methods and topics should be of interest not only to economists and game theorists concerned with the computation and existence of equilibrium outcomes in economic models and cooperative and non-cooperative games, but also to applied mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers dealing with models of highly nonlinear systems of equations (or polynomial equations).

A unified view of metaheuristics

This book provides a complete background on metaheuristics and shows readers how to design and implement efficient algorithms to solve complex optimization problems across a diverse range of applications, from networking and bioinformatics to engineering design, routing, and scheduling. It presents the main design questions for all families of metaheuristics and clearly illustrates how to implement the algorithms under a software framework to reuse both the design and code.

Throughout the book, the key search components of metaheuristics are considered as a toolbox for:

Designing efficient metaheuristics (e.g. local search, tabu search, simulated annealing, evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm optimization, scatter search, ant colonies, bee colonies, artificial immune systems) for optimization problems

Designing efficient metaheuristics for multi-objective optimization problems

Designing hybrid, parallel, and distributed metaheuristics

Implementing metaheuristics on sequential and parallel machines

Using many case studies and treating design and implementation independently, this book gives readers the skills necessary to solve large-scale optimization problems quickly and efficiently. It is a valuable reference for practicing engineers and researchers from diverse areas dealing with optimization or machine learning; and graduate students in computer science, operations research, control, engineering, business and management, and applied mathematics.

This book presents a novel unified treatment of inverse problems in optimal control and noncooperative dynamic game theory. It provides readers with fundamental tools for the development of practical algorithms to solve inverse problems in control, robotics, biology, and economics. The treatment involves the application of Pontryagin's minimum principle to a variety of inverse problems and proposes algorithms founded on the elegance of dynamic optimization theory. There is a balanced emphasis between fundamental theoretical questions and practical matters. The text begins by providing an introduction and background to its topics. It then discusses discrete-time and continuous-time inverse optimal control. The focus moves on to differential and dynamic games and the book is completed by consideration of relevant applications. The algorithms and theoretical results developed in Inverse Optimal Control and Inverse Noncooperative Dynamic Game Theory provide new insights into information requirements for solving inverse problems, including the structure, quantity, and types of state and control data. These insights have significant practical consequences in the design of technologies seeking to exploit inverse techniques such as collaborative robots, driver-assistance technologies, and autonomous systems. The book will therefore be of interest to researchers, engineers, and postgraduate students in several disciplines within the area of control and robotics.

Complex-Valued Modeling in Economics and Finance outlines the theory, methodology, and techniques behind modeling economic processes using complex variables theory. The theory of complex variables functions is widely used in many scientific fields, since work with complex variables can appropriately describe different complex real-life processes. Many economic indicators and factors reflecting the properties of the same object can be represented in the form of complex variables. By describing the relationship between various indicators using the functions of these variables, new economic and financial models can be created which are often more accurate than the models of real variables. This book pays critical attention to complex variables production in stock market modeling, modeling illegal economy, time series forecasting, complex auto-aggressive models, and economic dynamics modeling. Very little has been published on this topic and its applications within the fields of economics and finance, and this volume appeals to graduate-level students studying economics, academic researchers in economics and finance, and economists.

Sustainable development within urban and rural areas, transportation systems, logistics, supply chain management, urban health, social services, and architectural design are taken into consideration in the cohesive network models provided in this book. The ideas, methods, and models presented consider city landscapes and quality of life conditions based on mathematical network models and optimization. Interdisciplinary Works from prominent researchers in mathematical modeling, optimization, architecture, engineering, and physics are featured in this volume to promote health and well-being through design. Specific topics include: - Current technology that form the basis of future living in smart cities - Interdisciplinary design and networking of large-scale urban systems - Network communication and route traffic optimization - Carbon dioxide emission reduction - Closed-loop logistics chain management and operation - Modeling the effect urban environments on aging - Health care infrastructure - Urban water system management - Architectural design optimization Graduate students and researchers actively involved in architecture, engineering, building physics, logistics, supply chain management, and mathematical optimization will find the interdisciplinary work presented both informative and inspiring for further research.

This book provides a Management Science approach to quality management in food production. Aspects of food quality, product conformance and reliability/food safety are examined, starting with wheat and ending with its value chain transformation into bread. Protein qualities that influence glycemic index levels in bread are used to compare the value chains of France and the US. With Kaizen models the book shows how changes in these characteristics are the result of management decisions made by the wheat growers in response to government policy and industry strategy. Lately, it provides step-by-step instructions on how to apply kaizen methodology and Deming's work on quality improvement to make the HACCPs (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) in food safety systems more robust.

The progress of society can only happen through interpersonal cooperation, because only cooperation can bring about mutual benefit, thus bringing happiness to each person. This should be our collective rationality, but we often see it conflicts with individual interests, which leads to the so-called "Prisoners' Dilemma" and does not bring happiness to all. From a game theoretical perspective, this book addresses the issue of how people can cooperate better. It has two objectives. The first is to use common language to systematically introduce the basic methodologies and core conclusions of Game Theory, including the Nash equilibrium, multiple equilibriums, dynamic games, etc. Mathematics and theoretical models are used to the minimum necessary scope too, to make this book get access to ordinary readers with elementary mathematical training. The second objective is to utilize these methods and conclusions to analyze various Chinese social issues and institutional arrangements, with a focus on the reasons people exhibit non-cooperative behaviors as well as the institutions and cultures that promote interpersonal cooperation. In addition to economics, specialists in sociology, law, history, politics and management will also be attracted by this book for its insightful analysis on the issue of cooperation in these fields. Also, readers curious about Chinese society will benefit from this book.

Spotlighting the field of Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO), this book illustrates and implements state-of-the-art methodologies within the complex process of aerospace system design under uncertainties. The book provides approaches to integrating a multitude of components and constraints with the ultimate goal of reducing design cycles. Insights on a vast assortment of problems are provided, including discipline modeling, sensitivity analysis, uncertainty propagation, reliability analysis, and global multidisciplinary optimization. The extensive range of topics covered include areas of current open research. This Work is destined to become a fundamental reference for aerospace systems engineers, researchers, as well as for practitioners and engineers working in areas of optimization and uncertainty. Part I is largely comprised of fundamentals. Part II presents methodologies for single discipline problems with a review of existing uncertainty propagation, reliability analysis, and optimization techniques. Part III is dedicated to the uncertainty-based MDO and related issues. Part IV deals with three MDO related issues: the multifidelity, the multi-objective optimization and the mixed continuous/discrete optimization and Part V is devoted to test cases for aerospace vehicle design.

This volume is a collection of research works to honor the late Professor Mark H.A. Davis, whose pioneering work in the areas of Stochastic Processes, Filtering, and Stochastic Optimization spans more than five decades. Invited authors include his dissertation advisor, past collaborators, colleagues, mentees, and graduate students of Professor Davis, as well as scholars who have worked in the above areas. Their contributions may expand upon topics in piecewise deterministic processes, pathwise stochastic calculus, martingale methods in stochastic optimization, filtering, mean-field games, time-inconsistency, as well as impulse, singular, risk-sensitive and robust stochastic control.

The book begins with an introduction to software reliability, models and techniques. The book is an informative book covering the strategies needed to assess software failure behaviour and its quality, as well as the application of optimization tools for major managerial decisions related to the software development process. It features a broad range of topics including software reliability assessment and apportionment, optimal allocation and selection decisions and upgradations problems. It moves through a variety of problems related to the evolving field of optimization of software reliability engineering, including software release time, resource allocating, budget planning and warranty models, which are each explored in depth in dedicated chapters. This book provides a comprehensive insight into present-day practices in software reliability engineering, making it relevant to students, researchers, academics and practising consultants and engineers.

Today, the optimization of production planning processes by means of IT and quantitative methods is a de-facto standard in the energy industry. Franch et al. inChapter1andIkenouyeinChapter2giveanintroduction, overview, and reasonsforthis. Furthermore, theenergyproblemnowisnotonlyachallenging one but also one of the most important issues in the world from the political and economical points of view. In every country, the government is faced with the problem of how to adopt the system of 'Cap and Trade. ' Especially energy consuming industries, such as steel, power, oil and chemicals, are seriously confronted with this problem. VIII Preface This is also the reason why the German Operations Research Society (GOR) and one of its working groups, held a symposium with the title "Stochastic Optimization in the Energy Industry. " During the 78th meeting of the GOR working group "Praxis der Mathematischen Optimierung/Real World Optimization" in Aachen at Procom GmbH on April 21/22, 2007, the speakers with an application background explained their requirements for stochasticoptimizationsolutionsbasedonpracticalexperiences. Thespeakers from the research side and the software system suppliers examined di?erent aspects of the whole subject - from the integration of wind energy, the chain of errors in nuclear power plants and the scheduling of hydroelectric power stations, and the risk assessment in trading activities to the various software systems which support stochastic optimization methods. The symposium o?ered an interesting overview which re?ected the - quirements, possibilities and restrictions of "Stochastic Optimization in the Energy Industry.

This contributed volume focuses on various important areas of mathematics in which approximation methods play an essential role. It features cutting-edge research on a wide spectrum of analytic inequalities with emphasis on differential and integral inequalities in the spirit of functional analysis, operator theory, nonlinear analysis, variational calculus, featuring a plethora of applications, making this work a valuable resource. The reader will be exposed to convexity theory, polynomial inequalities, extremal problems, prediction theory, fixed point theory for operators, PDEs, fractional integral inequalities, multidimensional numerical integration, Gauss-Jacobi and Hermite-Hadamard type inequalities, Hilbert-type inequalities, and Ulam's stability of functional equations. Contributions have been written by eminent researchers, providing up-to-date information and several results which may be useful to a wide readership including graduate students and researchers working in mathematics, physics, economics, operational research, and their interconnections.

This is a textbook for university juniors, seniors, and graduate students majoring in economics, applied mathematics, and related fields. Each chapter is structured so that a core concept of that chapter is presented with motivations, useful applications are given, and related advanced topics are discussed for future study. Many helpful exercises at various levels are provided at the end of each chapter. Therefore, this book is most suitable for readers who intend to study non-cooperative game theory rigorously for both theoretical studies and applications. Game theory consists of non-cooperative games and cooperative games. This book covers only non-cooperative games, which are major tools used in current economics and related areas. Non-cooperative game theory aims to provide a mathematical prediction of strategic choices by decision makers (players) in situations of conflicting interest. Through the logical analyses of strategic choices, we obtain a better understanding of social (economic, business) problems and possible remedies. The book contains many well-known games such as the prisoner's dilemma, chicken (hawk-dove) game, coordination game, centipede game, and Cournot, Bertrand, and Stackelberg models in oligopoly. It also covers some advanced frameworks such as repeated games with non-simultaneous moves, repeated games with overlapping generations, global games, and voluntarily separable repeated prisoner's dilemma, so that readers familiar with basic game theory can expand their knowledge. The author's own research is reflected in topics such as formulations of information and evolutionary stability, which makes this book unique.

Dynamic game theory serves the purpose of including strategic interaction in decision making and is therefore often applied to economic problems. This book presents the state-of-the-art and directions for future research in dynamic game theory related to economics. It was initiated by contributors to the 12th Viennese Workshop on Optimal Control, Dynamic Games and Nonlinear Dynamics and combines a selection of papers from the workshop with invited papers of high quality.