Computational optimization is an important paradigm with a wide range of applications. In virtually all branches of engineering and industry, we almost always try to optimize something - whether to minimize the cost and energy consumption, or to maximize profits, outputs, performance and efficiency. In many cases, this search for optimality is challenging, either because of the high computational cost of evaluating objectives and constraints, or because of the nonlinearity, multimodality, discontinuity and uncertainty of the problem functions in the real-world systems. Another complication is that most problems are often NP-hard, that is, the solution time for finding the optimum increases exponentially with the problem size. The development of efficient algorithms and specialized techniques that address these difficulties is of primary importance for contemporary engineering, science and industry. This book consists of 12 self-contained chapters, contributed from worldwide experts who are working in these exciting areas. The book strives to review and discuss the latest developments concerning optimization and modelling with a focus on methods and algorithms for computational optimization. It also covers well-chosen, real-world applications in science, engineering and industry. Main topics include derivative-free optimization, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, surrogate-based methods, maximum simulated likelihood estimation, support vector machines, and metaheuristic algorithms. Application case studies include aerodynamic shape optimization, microwave engineering, black-box optimization, classification, economics, inventory optimization and structural optimization. This graduate level book can serve as an excellent reference for lecturers, researchers and students in computational science, engineering and industry.

Written by a world leader in the field and aimed at researchers in applied and engineering sciences, this brilliant text has as its main goal imparting an understanding of the methods so that practitioners can make immediate use of existing algorithms and software, and so that researchers can extend the state of the art and find new applications. It includes algorithms on seeking feasibility and analyzing infeasibility, as well as describing new and surprising applications.

Computational Methods in Optimization

Optimization is an important tool used in decision science and for the analysis of physical systems used in engineering. One can trace its roots to the Calculus of Variations and the work of Euler and Lagrange. This natural and reasonable approach to mathematical programming covers numerical methods for finite-dimensional optimization problems. It begins with very simple ideas progressing through more complicated concepts, concentrating on methods for both unconstrained and constrained optimization.

This book has become the standard for a complete, state-of-the-art description of the methods for unconstrained optimization and systems of nonlinear equations. Originally published in 1983, it provides information needed to understand both the theory and the practice of these methods and provides pseudocode for the problems. The algorithms covered are all based on Newton's method or "quasi-Newton" methods, and the heart of the book is the material on computational methods for multidimensional unconstrained optimization and nonlinear equation problems. The republication of this book by SIAM is driven by a continuing demand for specific and sound advice on how to solve real problems. The level of presentation is consistent throughout, with a good mix of examples and theory, making it a valuable text at both the graduate and undergraduate level. It has been praised as excellent for courses with approximately the same name as the book title and would also be useful as a supplemental text for a nonlinear programming or a numerical analysis course. Many exercises are provided to illustrate and develop the ideas in the text. A large appendix provides a mechanism for class projects and a reference for readers who want the details of the algorithms. Practitioners may use this book for self-study and reference. For complete understanding, readers should have a background in calculus and linear algebra. The book does contain background material in multivariable calculus and numerical linear algebra.

This text, covering a very large span of numerical methods and optimization, is primarily aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students. A background in calculus and linear algebra are the only mathematical requirements. The abundance of advanced methods and practical applications will be attractive to scientists and researchers working in different branches of engineering. The reader is progressively introduced to general numerical methods and optimization algorithms in each chapter. Examples accompany the various methods and guide the students to a better understanding of the applications. The user is often provided with the opportunity to verify their results with complex programming code. Each chapter ends with graduated exercises which furnish the student with new cases to study as well as ideas for exam/homework problems for the instructor. A set of programs made in MatlabTM is available on the author’s personal website and presents both numerical and optimization methods.

Optimization problems abound in most fields of science, engineering, and tech nology. In many of these problems it is necessary to compute the global optimum (or a good approximation) of a multivariable function. The variables that define the function to be optimized can be continuous and/or discrete and, in addition, many times satisfy certain constraints. Global optimization problems belong to the complexity class of NP-hard prob lems. Such problems are very difficult to solve. Traditional descent optimization algorithms based on local information are not adequate for solving these problems. In most cases of practical interest the number of local optima increases, on the aver age, exponentially with the size of the problem (number of variables). Furthermore, most of the traditional approaches fail to escape from a local optimum in order to continue the search for the global solution. Global optimization has received a lot of attention in the past ten years, due to the success of new algorithms for solving large classes of problems from diverse areas such as engineering design and control, computational chemistry and biology, structural optimization, computer science, operations research, and economics. This book contains refereed invited papers presented at the conference on "State of the Art in Global Optimization: Computational Methods and Applications" held at Princeton University, April 28-30, 1995. The conference presented current re search on global optimization and related applications in science and engineering. The papers included in this book cover a wide spectrum of approaches for solving global optimization problems and applications.