Bücher von Christodoulos A. Floudas

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 "e;State of the Art in Global Optimization: Computational Methods and Applications"e; 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.

The vast majority of important applications in science, engineering and applied science are characterized by the existence of multiple minima and maxima, as well as first, second and higher order saddle points. The area of Deterministic Global Optimization introduces theoretical, algorithmic and computational ad- vances that (i) address the computation and characterization of global minima and maxima, (ii) determine valid lower and upper bounds on the global minima and maxima, and (iii) address the enclosure of all solutions of nonlinear con- strained systems of equations. Global optimization applications are widespread in all disciplines and they range from atomistic or molecular level to process and product level representations. The primary goal of this book is three fold : first, to introduce the reader to the basics of deterministic global optimization; second, to present important theoretical and algorithmic advances for several classes of mathematical prob- lems that include biconvex and bilinear; problems, signomial problems, general twice differentiable nonlinear problems, mixed integer nonlinear problems, and the enclosure of all solutions of nonlinear constrained systems of equations; and third, to tie the theory and methods together with a variety of important applications.

This collection of challenging and well-designed test problems arising in literature studies also contains a wide spectrum of applications, including pooling/blending operations, heat exchanger network synthesis, homogeneous azeotropic separation, and dynamic optimization and optimal control problems.

This collection of challenging and well-designed test problems arising in literature studies also contains a wide spectrum of applications, including pooling/blending operations, heat exchanger network synthesis, homogeneous azeotropic separation, and dynamic optimization and optimal control problems.