A comprehensive guide to a powerful new analytical tool by two of its foremost innovators

The past decade has witnessed many exciting advances in the use of genetic algorithms (GAs) to solve optimization problems in everything from product design to scheduling and client/server networking. Aided by GAs, analysts and designers now routinely evolve solutions to complex combinatorial and multiobjective optimization problems with an ease and rapidity unthinkable withconventional methods. Despite the continued growth and refinement of this powerful analytical tool, there continues to be a lack of up-to-date guides to contemporary GA optimization principles and practices. Written by two of the world's leading experts in the field, this book fills that gap in the literature.

Taking an intuitive approach, Mitsuo Gen and Runwei Cheng employ numerous illustrations and real-world examples to help readers gain a thorough understanding of basic GA concepts-including encoding, adaptation, and genetic optimizations-and to show how GAs can be used to solve an array of constrained, combinatorial, multiobjective, and fuzzy optimization problems. Focusing on problems commonly encountered in industry-especially in manufacturing-Professors Gen and Cheng provide in-depth coverage of advanced GA techniques for:
* Reliability design
* Manufacturing cell design
* Scheduling
* Advanced transportation problems
* Network design and routing

Genetic Algorithms and Engineering Optimization is an indispensable working resource for industrial engineers and designers, as well as systems analysts, operations researchers, and management scientists working in manufacturing and related industries. It also makes an excellent primary or supplementary text for advanced courses in industrial engineering, management science, operations research, computer science, and artificial intelligence.

The last few years have seen important advances in the use of genetic algorithms to address challenging optimization problems in industrial engineering. Genetic Algorithms and Engineering Design is the only book to cover the most recent technologies and their application to manufacturing, presenting a comprehensive and fully up-to-date treatment of genetic algorithms in industrial engineering and operations research.
Beginning with a tutorial on genetic algorithm fundamentals and their use in solving constrained and combinatorial optimization problems, the book applies these techniques to problems in specific areas--sequencing, scheduling and production plans, transportation and vehicle routing, facility layout, location-allocation, and more. Each topic features a clearly written problem description, mathematical model, and summary of conventional heuristic algorithms. All algorithms are explained in intuitive, rather than highly-technical, language and are reinforced with illustrative figures and numerical examples.
Written by two internationally acknowledged experts in the field, Genetic Algorithms and Engineering Design features original material on the foundation and application of genetic algorithms, and also standardizes the terms and symbols used in other sources--making this complex subject truly accessible to the beginner as well as to the more advanced reader.
Ideal for both self-study and classroom use, this self-contained reference provides indispensable state-of-the-art guidance to professionals and students working in industrial engineering, management science, operations research, computer science, and artificial intelligence. The only comprehensive, state-of-the-art treatment available on the use of genetic algorithms in industrial engineering and operations research . . .
Written by internationally recognized experts in the field of genetic algorithms and artificial intelligence, Genetic Algorithms and Engineering Design provides total coverage of current technologies and their application to manufacturing systems. Incorporating original material on the foundation and application of genetic algorithms, this unique resource also standardizes the terms and symbols used in other sources--making this complex subject truly accessible to students as well as experienced professionals. Designed for clarity and ease of use, this self-contained reference:
* Provides a comprehensive survey of selection strategies, penalty techniques, and genetic operators used for constrained and combinatorial optimization problems
* Shows how to use genetic algorithms to make production schedules, solve facility/location problems, make transportation/vehicle routing plans, enhance system reliability, and much more
* Contains detailed numerical examples, plus more than 160 auxiliary figures to make solution procedures transparent and understandable

"Angel At McDonald's" is a provocative drama that is a striking parable about belief in something that seems impossible and the courage to do what God commands. Two young women who are decorating a community center in an underprivileged neighborhood encounter three angry toughs who resent the girls' "kindness." With the gentle insistence of an angel who gives them an unusual assignment, the girls confront their fear and tell the skeptical ghetto kids about Jesus. And despite initial wariness, the message finds a home in some of their hearts.
This play can be presented as part of a worship service or as the entertainment at a church dinner or other gathering. It can be staged as elaborately or as simply as you wish, and lends itself to a readers' theater format. "Angel At McDonald's" is an excellent discussion starter that is sure to generate many viewpoints about our preconceived ideas of what constitutes "missions." And it connects the occasion of Christ's birth to the birth of new spiritual life. With realistic dialogue and situations, it's perfect for use with teenagers.
Linda M. Goens is the Director of Creative Worship Arts at the United Methodist Church of the Saviour in Indianapolis, where she writes and directs drama and clown sketches for worship in addition to choreographing and performing liturgical movement. A graduate of the University of California at Sacramento (B.A.) and Indiana University (M.Ed.), Goens facilitates workshops in spiritual journaling and creative worship. She is the author of "The Shepherds" (CSS) and "Praising God Through the Lively Arts" (Abingdon Press).