A reader-friendly introduction to the exciting, vast potential of Genetic Algorithms. The book gives readers a general understanding of the concepts underlying the technology, an insight into its perceived benefits and failings, and a clear and practical illustration of how optimization problems can be solved more efficiently using Falkenauer's new class of algorithms.

This book presents advances and innovations in grouping genetic algorithms, enriched with new and unique heuristic optimization techniques. These algorithms are specially designed for solving industrial grouping problems where system entities are to be partitioned or clustered into efficient groups according to a set of guiding decision criteria. Examples of such problems are: vehicle routing problems, team formation problems, timetabling problems, assembly line balancing, group maintenance planning, modular design, and task assignment. A wide range of industrial grouping problems, drawn from diverse fields such as logistics, supply chain management, project management, manufacturing systems, engineering design and healthcare, are presented. Typical complex industrial grouping problems, with multiple decision criteria and constraints, are clearly described using illustrative diagrams and formulations. The problems are mapped into a common group structure that can conveniently be used as an input scheme to specific variants of grouping genetic algorithms. Unique heuristic grouping techniques are developed to handle grouping problems efficiently and effectively. Illustrative examples and computational results are presented in tables and graphs to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithms. Researchers, decision analysts, software developers, and graduate students from various disciplines will find this in-depth reader-friendly exposition of advances and applications of grouping genetic algorithms an interesting, informative and valuable resource.

The work presented in this book is a combination of theoretical advancements of big data analysis, cloud computing, and their potential applications in scientific computing. The theoretical advancements are supported with illustrative examples and its applications in handling real life problems. The applications are mostly undertaken from real life situations. The book discusses major issues pertaining to big data analysis using computational intelligence techniques and some issues of cloud computing. An elaborate bibliography is provided at the end of each chapter. The material in this book includes concepts, figures, graphs, and tables to guide researchers in the area of big data analysis and cloud computing.

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.

Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming: Modern Concepts and Practical Applications discusses algorithmic developments in the context of genetic algorithms (GAs) and genetic programming (GP). It applies the algorithms to significant combinatorial optimization problems and describes structure identification using HeuristicLab as a platform for al

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS is based on the proceedings of a workshop that was an integral part of the 1996-97 IMA program on "MATHEMATICS IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING." I thank Lawrence David Davis (Tica Associates), Kenneth De Jong (Computer Science, George Mason University), Michael D. Vose (Computer Science, The University of Tennessee), and L. Darrell Whitley (Computer Science, Colorado State University) for their excellent work in organizing the workshop and for editing the proceedings. Further appreciation is ex tended to Donald G. Truhlar (Chemistry and Supercomputing Institute, University of Minnesota) who was also one of the workshop organizers. In addition, I also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foundation (NSF), Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI), and the Army Research Office (ARO), whose financial support made the workshop possible. Willard Miller, Jr., Professor and Director v PREFACE The IMA Workshop on Evolutionary Algorithms brought together many of the top researchers working in the area of Evolutionary Com putation for a week of intensive interaction. The field of Evolutionary Computation has developed significantly over the past 30 years and today consists a variety of subfields such as genetic algorithms, evolution strate gies, evolutionary programming, and genetic programming, each with their own algorithmic perspectives and goals.