Metaheuristics for Hard Optimization Methods and Case Studies Dréo, J., Pétrowski, A., Siarry, P., Taillard, E. Book coordinated by Patrick Siarry SPRINGER 2005, XII, 369 p. 140 illus., Hardcover ISBN: 3-540-23022-X US$ 99.00

Metaheuristics for Hard Optimization comprises of three parts. The first part is devoted to the detailed presentation of the four most widely known metaheuristics:

• the simulated annealing method,

• tabu search,

• the evolutionary algorithms,

• ant colony algorithms.

Each one of these metaheuristics is actually a family of methods, of which the essential elements are discussed. In the second part, the book presents some other less widespread metaheuristics, then, extensions of metaheuristics and some ways of research are described . The problem of the choice of a metaheuristic is posed and solution methods are discussed. The last part concentrates on three case studies from telecommunications, air traffic control, and vehicle routing.
Written for:
Advanced students in engineering, applied mathematics, operations research; researchers and professionals

Keywords: Global Optimization, Metaheuristics, Optimization

Contents:
Introduction.- Simulated annealing.- Tabu search.- Evolutionary algorithms.- Ant colony algorithms.- Some other metaheuristics.- Extensions.- Methodology.- Optimization of UMTS radio access networks with genetic algorithms.- Genetic algorithms applied to air traffic management.- Constraint programming and ant colonies applied to vehicle routing problems.- Conclusion.- Appendix A: modeling of simulated annealing through the Markov chain formalism.- Appendix B : complete example of implementation of tabu search for the Quadratic Assignment Problem.- References.- Index.