Many physicists are not aware of the fact that they can solve their problems by applying optimization algorithms. Since the number of such algorithms is steadily increasing, many new algorithms have not been presented comprehensively until now. This presentation of recently developed algorithms applied in physics, including demonstrations of how they work and related results, aims to encourage their application, and as such the algorithms selected cover concepts and methods from statistical physics to optimization problems emerging in theoretical computer science.

The past few years have witnessed a substantial growth in the number of applications for optimization algorithms in solving problems in the field of physics. Examples include determining the structure of molecules, estimating the parameters of interacting galaxies, the ground states of electronic quantum systems, the behavior of disordered magnetic materials, and phase transitions in combinatorial optimization problems. This book serves as an introduction to the field, while also presenting a complete overview of modern algorithms. The authors begin with the relevant foundations from computer science, graph theory and statistical physics, before moving on to thoroughly explain algorithms - backed by illustrative examples. They include pertinent mathematical transformations, which in turn are used to make the physical problems tractable with methods from combinatorial optimization. Throughout, a number of interesting results are shown for all physical examples. The final chapter provides numerous practical hints on software development, testing programs, and evaluating the results of computer experiments.

This book focuses on the fields of nature-inspired algorithms, optimization problems and fuzzy logic. In this book, a new metaheuristic based on String Theory from Physics is proposed. It is important to mention that we have proposed the new algorithm to generate new potential solutions in optimization problems in order to find new ways that could improve the results in solving these problems. We are presenting the results for the proposed method in different cases of study. The first case, is optimization of traditional benchmark mathematical functions. The second case, is the optimization of benchmark functions of the CEC 2015 Competition and we are also presenting results of the CEC 2017 Competition on Constrained Real-Parameter Optimization that are problems that contain the presence of constraints that alter the shape of the search space making them more difficult to solve. Finally, in the third case, we are presenting the optimization of a fuzzy inference system, specifically for finding the optimal design of a fuzzy controller for an autonomous mobile robot. It is important to mention that in all study cases we are presenting statistical tests in or-der to validate the performance of proposed method. In summary, we believe that this book will be of great interest to a wide audience, ranging from engineering and science graduate students, to researchers and professors in computational intelligence, metaheuristics, optimization, robotics and control.

This book presents examples of modern optimization algorithms. The focus is on a clear understanding of underlying studied problems, understanding described algorithms by a broad range of scientists and providing (computational) examples that a reader can easily repeat.

In operations research and computer science it is common practice to evaluate the performance of optimization algorithms on the basis of computational results, and the experimental approach should follow accepted principles that guarantee the reliability and reproducibility of results. However, computational experiments differ from those in other sciences, and the last decade has seen considerable methodological research devoted to understanding the particular features of such experiments and assessing the related statistical methods. This book consists of methodological contributions on different scenarios of experimental analysis. The first part overviews the main issues in the experimental analysis of algorithms, and discusses the experimental cycle of algorithm development; the second part treats the characterization by means of statistical distributions of algorithm performance in terms of solution quality, runtime and other measures; and the third part collects advanced methods from experimental design for configuring and tuning algorithms on a specific class of instances with the goal of using the least amount of experimentation. The contributor list includes leading scientists in algorithm design, statistical design, optimization and heuristics, and most chapters provide theoretical background and are enriched with case studies. This book is written for researchers and practitioners in operations research and computer science who wish to improve the experimental assessment of optimization algorithms and, consequently, their design.

Synthesis and Optimization of DSP Algorithms describes approaches taken to synthesising structural hardware descriptions of digital circuits from high-level descriptions of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) algorithms. The book contains: -A tutorial on the subjects of digital design and architectural synthesis, intended for DSP engineers, -A tutorial on the subject of DSP, intended for digital designers, -A discussion of techniques for estimating the peak values likely to occur in a DSP system, thus enabling an appropriate signal scaling. Analytic techniques, simulation techniques, and hybrids are discussed. The applicability of different analytic approaches to different types of DSP design is covered, -The development of techniques to optimise the precision requirements of a DSP algorithm, aiming for efficient implementation in a custom parallel processor. The idea is to trade-off numerical accuracy for area or power-consumption advantages. Again, both analytic and simulation techniques for estimating numerical accuracy are described and contrasted. Optimum and heuristic approaches to precision optimisation are discussed, -A discussion of the importance of the scheduling, allocation, and binding problems, and development of techniques to automate these processes with reference to a precision-optimized algorithm, -Future perspectives for synthesis and optimization of DSP algorithms.

This book presents basic optimization principles and gradient-based algorithms to a general audience, in a brief and easy-to-read form. It enables professionals to apply optimization theory to engineering, physics, chemistry, or business economics.