Broad-spectrum approach to important topic. Explores the classic theory of minima and maxima, classical calculus of variations, simplex technique and linear programming, optimality and dynamic programming, more. 1969 edition.

This book has grown out of lectures and courses in calculus of variations and optimization taught for many years at the University of Michigan to graduate students at various stages of their careers, and always to a mixed audience of students in mathematics and engineering. It attempts to present a balanced view of the subject, giving some emphasis to its connections with the classical theory and to a number of those problems of economics and engineering which have motivated so many of the present developments, as well as presenting aspects of the current theory, particularly value theory and existence theorems. However, the presentation ofthe theory is connected to and accompanied by many concrete problems of optimization, classical and modern, some more technical and some less so, some discussed in detail and some only sketched or proposed as exercises. No single part of the subject (such as the existence theorems, or the more traditional approach based on necessary conditions and on sufficient conditions, or the more recent one based on value function theory) can give a sufficient representation of the whole subject. This holds particularly for the existence theorems, some of which have been conceived to apply to certain large classes of problems of optimization. For all these reasons it is essential to present many examples (Chapters 3 and 6) before the existence theorems (Chapters 9 and 11-16), and to investigate these examples by means of the usual necessary conditions, sufficient conditions, and value function theory.

This book presents the latest research findings and state-of-the-art solutions on optimization techniques and provides new research direction and developments. Both the theoretical and practical aspects of the book will be much beneficial to experts and students in optimization and operation research community. It selects high quality papers from The International Conference on Optimization: Techniques and Applications (ICOTA2013). The conference is an official conference series of POP (The Pacific Optimization Research Activity Group; there are over 500 active members). These state-of-the-art works in this book authored by recognized experts will make contributions to the development of optimization with its applications.

The authors have written a rigorous yet elementary and self-contained book to present, in a unified framework, generalized convex functions. The book also includes numerous exercises and two appendices which list the findings consulted.

Optimization is a field important in its own right but is also integral to numerous applied sciences, including operations research, management science, economics, finance and all branches of mathematics-oriented engineering. Constrained optimization models are one of the most widely used mathematical models in operations research and management science. This book gives a modern and well-balanced presentation of the subject, focusing on theory but also including algorithims and examples from various real-world applications. Detailed examples and counter-examples are provided--as are exercises, solutions and helpful hints, and Matlab/Maple supplements.

In vector optimization one investigates optimal elements such as min imal, strongly minimal, properly minimal or weakly minimal elements of a nonempty subset of a partially ordered linear space. The prob lem of determining at least one of these optimal elements, if they exist at all, is also called a vector optimization problem. Problems of this type can be found not only in mathematics but also in engineer ing and economics. Vector optimization problems arise, for exam ple, in functional analysis (the Hahn-Banach theorem, the lemma of Bishop-Phelps, Ekeland's variational principle), multiobjective pro gramming, multi-criteria decision making, statistics (Bayes solutions, theory of tests, minimal covariance matrices), approximation theory (location theory, simultaneous approximation, solution of boundary value problems) and cooperative game theory (cooperative n player differential games and, as a special case, optimal control problems). In the last decade vector optimization has been extended to problems with set-valued maps. This new field of research, called set optimiza tion, seems to have important applications to variational inequalities and optimization problems with multivalued data. The roots of vector optimization go back to F. Y. Edgeworth (1881) and V. Pareto (1896) who has already given the definition of the standard optimality concept in multiobjective optimization. But in mathematics this branch of optimization has started with the leg endary paper of H. W. Kuhn and A. W. Tucker (1951). Since about v Vl Preface the end of the 60's research is intensively made in vector optimization.

This volume contains a thorough overview of the rapidly growing field of global optimization, with chapters on key topics such as complexity, heuristic methods, derivation of lower bounds for minimization problems, and branch-and-bound methods and convergence. The final chapter offers both benchmark test problems and applications of global optimization, such as finding the conformation of a molecule or planning an optimal trajectory for interplanetary space travel. An appendix provides fundamental information on convex and concave functions. Intended for Ph.D. students, researchers, and practitioners looking for advanced solution methods to difficult optimization problems. It can be used as a supplementary text in an advanced graduate-level seminar.