The NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Algorithms for continuous optimiza� tion: the state of the art" was held September 5-18, 1993, at II Ciocco, Barga, Italy. It was attended by 75 students (among them many well known specialists in optimiza� tion) from the following countries: Belgium, Brasil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Spain, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela. The lectures were given by 17 well known specialists in the field, from Brasil, China, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, UK, USA. Solving continuous optimization problems is a fundamental task in computational mathematics for applications in areas of engineering, economics, chemistry, biology and so on. Most real problems are nonlinear and can be of quite large size. Devel� oping efficient algorithms for continuous optimization has been an important field of research in the last 30 years, with much additional impetus provided in the last decade by the availability of very fast and parallel computers. Techniques, like the simplex method, that were already considered fully developed thirty years ago have been thoroughly revised and enormously improved. The aim of this ASI was to present the state of the art in this field. While not all important aspects could be covered in the fifty hours of lectures (for instance multiob� jective optimization had to be skipped), we believe that most important topics were presented, many of them by scientists who greatly contributed to their development.

Synopsis

This text presents the main algorithms for solving nonlinear continuous optimization (local and global methods), including linear programming as special cases (via simplex or interior point methods) and linear complementarity problems. Recently developed topics of parallel computation, neural networks for optimization, automatic differentiation and ABS methods are included. The book consists of 19 chapters written by well-known specialists, who have made major contributions to developing the field. While a few chapters are mainly theoretical (as the one by Giannessi, which provides a novel, far-reaching approach to optimality conditions, and the one by Spedicato, which presents the unifying tool given by the ABS approach) most chapters have been written with special attention to features like stability, efficiency, high performance and software availability. The book should be of interest to persons with both theoretical and practical interest in the important field of optimization.

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