Introduction to Applied Optimization, Hardcover/Urmila M. Diwekar

692Optimization has pervaded all spheres of human endeavor. Although op- mization has been practiced in some form or other from the early prehistoric era, this area has seen progressive growth during the last ?ve decades. M- ern society lives not only in an environment of intense competition but is also constrained to plan its growth in a sustainable manner with due concern for conservation of resources. Thus, it has become imperative to plan, design, operate, and manage resources and assets in an optimal manner. Early - proaches have been to optimize individual activities in a standalone manner, however, thecurrenttrendistowardsanintegratedapproach: integratings- thesis and design, design and control, production planning, scheduling, and control. The functioning of a system may be governed by multiple perf- mance objectives. Optimization of such systems will call for special strategies for handling the multiple objectives to provide solutions closer to the systems requirement. Uncertainty and variability are two issues which render op- mal decision making di?cult. Optimization under uncertainty would become increasingly important if one is to get the best out of a system plagued by uncertain components. These issues have thrown up a large number of ch- lenging optimization problems which need to be resolved with a set of existing and newly evolving optimization tools. Optimization theory had evolved initially to provide generic solutions to optimizationproblemsinlinear, nonlinear, unconstrained, andconstrained- mains. Theseoptimization problems wereoften called mathematical progr- mingproblemswithtwodistinctiveclassi?cations, namelylinearandnonlinear programming pro About author(s): Urmila Diwekar is the president of the Vishwamitra Research, a non-profit research institute that she founded to pursue multidisciplinary research in the areas of Optimization under Uncertainty and Computer-aided Design applied to Energy, Environment, and Sustainability. From 2002-2004, she was a Professor in the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Bio-Engineering, and Industrial Engineering, and in the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy, at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She has a special formal arrangement with UIC where remains as the main advisor for her Ph.D. and M.S. students and teaches a course on optimization. From 1991-2002 she was on the faculty of the Carnegie Mellon University, with early promotions to both the Associate and the Full Professor level.