Discrete event systems (DES) have become pervasive in our daily lives. Examples include (but are not restricted to) manufacturing and supply chains, transportation, healthcare, call centers, and financial engineering. However, due to their complexities that often involve millions or even billions of events with many variables and constraints, modeling these stochastic simulations has long been a "hard nut to crack." The advance in available computer technology, especially of cluster and cloud computing, has paved the way for the realization of a number of stochastic simulation optimization for complex discrete event systems. This book will introduce two important techniques initially proposed and developed by Professor Y C Ho and his team; namely perturbation analysis and ordinal optimization for stochastic simulation optimization, and present the state-of-the-art technology, and their future research directions.

This timely book discusses the recent developments in maritime logistics, an important specialized area for the global economy. It includes issues such as the recent economic crisis, port competition and development, and provides insights and trends relating to these issues. Consisting of renowned researchers worldwide, the primary objective of the book identifies some of the new problems and challenges faced and innovative solutions to address these problems.