This book focuses on the development of approximation-related algorithms and their relevant applications. Individual contributions are written by leading experts and reflect emerging directions and connections in data approximation and optimization. Chapters discuss state of the art topics with highly relevant applications throughout science, engineering, technology and social sciences. Academics, researchers, data science practitioners, business analysts, social sciences investigators and graduate students will find the number of illustrations, applications, and examples provided useful. This volume is based on the conference Approximation and Optimization: Algorithms, Complexity, and Applications, which was held in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, June 29–30, 2017. The mix of survey and research content includes topics in approximations to discrete noisy data; binary sequences; design of networks and energy systems; fuzzy control; large scale optimization; noisy data; data-dependent approximation; networked control systems; machine learning ; optimal design; no free lunch theorem; non-linearly constrained optimization; spectroscopy.

This book provides a basic, initial resource, introducing science and engineering students to the field of optimization. It covers three main areas: mathematical programming, calculus of variations and optimal control, highlighting the ideas and concepts and offering insights into the importance of optimality conditions in each area. It also systematically presents affordable approximation methods. Exercises at various levels have been included to support the learning process.

This book documents the state of the art in combinatorial optimization, presenting approximate solutions of virtually all relevant classes of NP-hard optimization problems. The wealth of problems, algorithms, results, and techniques make it an indispensible source of reference for professionals. The text smoothly integrates numerous illustrations, examples, and exercises.

This book is intended to be used as a textbook for graduate students studying theoretical computer science. It can also be used as a reference book for researchers in the area of design and analysis of approximation algorithms. Design and Analysis of Approximation Algorithms is a graduate course in theoretical computer science taught widely in the universities, both in the United States and abroad. There are, however, very few textbooks available for this course. Among those available in the market, most books follow a problem-oriented format; that is, they collected many important combinatorial optimization problems and their approximation algorithms, and organized them based on the types, or applications, of problems, such as geometric-type problems, algebraic-type problems, etc. Such arrangement of materials is perhaps convenient for a researcher to look for the problems and algorithms related to his/her work, but is difficult for a student to capture the ideas underlying the various algorithms. In the new book proposed here, we follow a more structured, technique-oriented presentation. We organize approximation algorithms into different chapters, based on the design techniques for the algorithms, so that the reader can study approximation algorithms of the same nature together. It helps the reader to better understand the design and analysis techniques for approximation algorithms, and also helps the teacher to present the ideas and techniques of approximation algorithms in a more unified way.

Optimal control theory has numerous applications in both science and engineering. This book presents basic concepts and principles of mathematical programming in terms of set-valued analysis and develops a comprehensive optimality theory of problems described by ordinary and partial differential inclusions. In addition to including well-recognized results of variational analysis and optimization, the book includes a number of new and important ones Includes practical examples

Semidefinite programs constitute one of the largest classes of optimization problems that can be solved with reasonable efficiency - both in theory and practice. They play a key role in a variety of research areas, such as combinatorial optimization, approximation algorithms, computational complexity, graph theory, geometry, real algebraic geometry and quantum computing. This book is an introduction to selected aspects of semidefinite programming and its use in approximation algorithms. It covers the basics but also a significant amount of recent and more advanced material. There are many computational problems, such as MAXCUT, for which one cannot reasonably expect to obtain an exact solution efficiently, and in such case, one has to settle for approximate solutions. For MAXCUT and its relatives, exciting recent results suggest that semidefinite programming is probably the ultimate tool. Indeed, assuming the Unique Games Conjecture, a plausible but as yet unproven hypothesis, it was shown that for these problems, known algorithms based on semidefinite programming deliver the best possible approximation ratios among all polynomial-time algorithms. This book follows the “semidefinite side” of these developments, presenting some of the main ideas behind approximation algorithms based on semidefinite programming. It develops the basic theory of semidefinite programming, presents one of the known efficient algorithms in detail, and describes the principles of some others. It also includes applications, focusing on approximation algorithms.

The monograph addresses some problems particularly with regard to ill-posedness of boundary value problems and problems where we cannot expect to have uniqueness of their solutions in the standard functional spaces. Bringing original and previous results together, it tackles computational challenges by exploiting methods of approximation and asymptotic analysis and harnessing differences between optimal control problems and their underlying PDEs

Many of our daily-life problems can be written in the form of an optimization problem. Therefore, solution methods are needed to solve such problems. Due to the complexity of the problems, it is not always easy to find the exact solution. However, approximate solutions can be found. The theory of the best approximation is applicable in a variety of problems arising in nonlinear functional analysis and optimization. This book highlights interesting aspects of nonlinear analysis and optimization together with many applications in the areas of physical and social sciences including engineering. It is immensely helpful for young graduates and researchers who are pursuing research in this field, as it provides abundant research resources for researchers and post-doctoral fellows. This will be a valuable addition to the library of anyone who works in the field of applied mathematics, economics and engineering.

Covering the basic techniques used in the latest research work, the author consolidates progress made so far, including some very recent and promising results, and conveys the beauty and excitement of work in the field. He gives clear, lucid explanations of key results and ideas, with intuitive proofs, and provides critical examples and numerous illustrations to help elucidate the algorithms. Many of the results presented have been simplified and new insights provided. Of interest to theoretical computer scientists, operations researchers, and discrete mathematicians.