The field of global optimization has been developing at a rapid pace. There is a journal devoted to the topic, as well as many publications and notable books discussing various aspects of global optimization. This book is intended to complement these other publications with a focus on stochastic methods for global optimization. Stochastic methods, such as simulated annealing and genetic algo rithms, are gaining in popularity among practitioners and engineers be they are relatively easy to program on a computer and may be cause applied to a broad class of global optimization problems. However, the theoretical performance of these stochastic methods is not well under stood. In this book, an attempt is made to describe the theoretical prop erties of several stochastic adaptive search methods. Such a theoretical understanding may allow us to better predict algorithm performance and ultimately design new and improved algorithms. This book consolidates a collection of papers on the analysis and de velopment of stochastic adaptive search. The first chapter introduces random search algorithms. Chapters 2-5 describe the theoretical anal ysis of a progression of algorithms. A main result is that the expected number of iterations for pure adaptive search is linear in dimension for a class of Lipschitz global optimization problems. Chapter 6 discusses algorithms, based on the Hit-and-Run sampling method, that have been developed to approximate the ideal performance of pure random search. The final chapter discusses several applications in engineering that use stochastic adaptive search methods.

Ch. 1. Introduction / Gade Pandu Rangaiah -- ch. 2. Formulation and illustration of Luus-Jaakola optimization procedure / Rein Luus -- ch. 3. Adaptive random search and simulated annealing optimizers : algorithms and application issues / Jacek M. Jezowski, Grzegorz Poplewski and Roman Bochenek -- ch. 4. Genetic algorithms in process engineering : developments and implementation issues / Abdunnaser Younes, Ali Elkamel and Shawki Areibi -- ch. 5. Tabu search for global optimization of problems having continuous variables / Sim Mong Kai, Gade Pandu Rangaiah and Mekapati Srinivas -- ch. 6. Differential evolution : method, developments and chemical engineering applications / Chen Shaoqiang, Gade Pandu Rangaiah and Mekapati Srinivas -- ch. 7. Ant colony optimization : details of algorithms suitable for process engineering / V.K. Jayaraman [und weitere] -- ch. 8. Particle swarm optimization for solving NLP and MINLP in chemical engineering / Bassem Jarboui [und weitere] -- ch. 9. An introduction to the harmony search algorithm / Gordon Ingram and Tonghua Zhang -- ch. 10. Meta-heuristics : evaluation and reporting techniques / Abdunnaser Younes, Ali Elkamel and Shawki Areibi -- ch. 11. A hybrid approach for constraint handling in MINLP optimization using stochastic algorithms / G.A. Durand [und weitere] -- ch. 12. Application of Luus-Jaakola optimization procedure to model reduction, parameter estimation and optimal control / Rein Luus -- ch. 13. Phase stability and equilibrium calculations in reactive systems using differential evolution and tabu search / Adrian Bonilla-Petriciolet [und weitere] -- ch. 14. Differential evolution with tabu list for global optimization : evaluation of two versions on benchmark and phase stability problems / Mekapati Srinivas and Gade Pandu Rangaiah -- ch. 15. Application of adaptive random search optimization for solving industrial water allocation problem / Grzegorz Poplewski and Jacek M. Jezowski -- ch. 16. Genetic algorithms formulation for retrofitting heat exchanger network / Roman Bochenek and Jacek M. Jezowski -- ch. 17. Ant colony optimization for classification and feature selection / V.K. Jayaraman [und weitere] -- ch. 18. Constraint programming and genetic algorithm / Prakash R. Kotecha, Mani Bhushan and Ravindra D. Gudi -- ch. 19. Schemes and implementations of parallel stochastic optimization algorithms application of tabu search to chemical engineering problems / B. Lin and D.C. Miller

In 1995 the Handbook of Global Optimization (first volume), edited by R. Horst, and P.M. Pardalos, was published. This second volume of the Handbook of Global Optimization is comprised of chapters dealing with modern approaches to global optimization, including different types of heuristics. Topics covered in the handbook include various metaheuristics, such as simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, neural networks, taboo search, shake-and-bake methods, and deformation methods. In addition, the book contains chapters on new exact stochastic and deterministic approaches to continuous and mixed-integer global optimization, such as stochastic adaptive search, two-phase methods, branch-and-bound methods with new relaxation and branching strategies, algorithms based on local optimization, and dynamical search. Finally, the book contains chapters on experimental analysis of algorithms and software, test problems, and applications.

This book examines the main methodological and theoretical developments in stochastic global optimization. It is designed to inspire readers to explore various stochastic methods of global optimization by clearly explaining the main methodological principles and features of the methods. Among the book’s features is a comprehensive study of probabilistic and statistical models underlying the stochastic optimization algorithms.

In science, engineering and economics, decision problems are frequently modelled by optimizing the value of a (primary) objective function under stated feasibility constraints. In many cases of practical relevance, the optimization problem structure does not warrant the global optimality of local solutions; hence, it is natural to search for the globally best solution(s). Global Optimization in Action provides a comprehensive discussion of adaptive partition strategies to solve global optimization problems under very general structural requirements. A unified approach to numerous known algorithms makes possible straightforward generalizations and extensions, leading to efficient computer-based implementations. A considerable part of the book is devoted to applications, including some generic problems from numerical analysis, and several case studies in environmental systems analysis and management. The book is essentially self-contained and is based on the author's research, in cooperation (on applications) with a number of colleagues. Audience: Professors, students, researchers and other professionals in the fields of operations research, management science, industrial and applied mathematics, computer science, engineering, economics and the environmental sciences.

In the paper we propose a model of tax incentives optimization for inve- ment projects with a help of the mechanism of accelerated depreciation. Unlike the tax holidays which influence on effective income tax rate, accelerated - preciation affects on taxable income. In modern economic practice the state actively use for an attraction of - vestment into the creation of new enterprises such mechanisms as accelerated depreciation and tax holidays. The problem under our consideration is the following. Assume that the state (region) is interested in realization of a certain investment project, for ex- ple, the creation of a new enterprise. In order to attract a potential investor the state decides to use a mechanism of accelerated tax depreciation. The foll- ing question arise. What is a reasonable principle for choosing depreciation rate? From the state’s point of view the future investor’s behavior will be rat- nal. It means that while looking at economic environment the investor choose such a moment for investment which maximizes his expected net present value (NPV) from the given project. For this case both criteria and “investment rule” depend on proposed (by the state) depreciation policy. For the simplicity we will suppose that the purpose of the state for a given project is a maximi- tion of a discounted tax payments into the budget from the enterprise after its creation. Of course, these payments depend on the moment of investor’s entry and, therefore, on the depreciation policy established by the state.

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.