The second edition of this book illuminates the fundamental principle and applications of probability-based multi-objective optimization for material selection in viewpoint of system theory, in which a brand new concept of preferable probability and its assessment as well as other treatments are introduced by authors for the first time. Hybrids of the new approach with experimental design methodologies (response surface methodology, orthogonal experimental design, and uniform experimental design) are all performed; robustness assessment and performance utility with desirable value are included; discretization treatment in the evaluation is presented; fuzzy-based approach and cluster analysis are involved; applications in portfolio investment and shortest path problem are concerned as well. The authors wish this work will cast a brick to attract jade and would make its contributions to relevant fields as a paving stone. It is designed to be used as a textbook for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students in relevant majors, while also serving as a valuable reference book for scientists and engineers involved in related fields.

This book illuminates the fundamental principle and applications of probability-based multi-objective optimization for material selection systematically, in which a brand new concept of preferable probability and its assessment as well as other treatments are introduced by authors for the first time. Hybrids of the new approach with experimental design methodologies, such as response surface methodology, orthogonal experimental design, and uniform experimental design, are all performed; the conditions of the material performance utility with desirable value and robust assessment are included; the discretization treatment of complicated integral in the evaluation is presented. The authors wish this work will cast a brick to attract jade and would make its contributions to relevant fields as a paving stone. This book can be used as a textbook for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students in material relevant majors, and a reference book for scientists and engineers digging in the related fields.

Zusammenfassung: This book develops robust design and assessment of product and production from viewpoint of system theory, which is quantized with the introduction of brand new concept of preferable probability and its assessment. It aims to provide a new idea and novel way to robust design and assessment of product and production and relevant problems. Robust design and assessment of product and production is attractive to both customer and producer since the stability and insensitivity of a product's quality to uncontrollable factors reflect its value. Taguchi method has been used to conduct robust design and assessment of product and production for half a century, but its rationality is criticized by statisticians due to its casting of both mean value of a response and its dispersion into one index, which doesn't characterize the issue of simultaneous robust design of above two independent responses sufficiently, so an appropriate approach is needed. The preference or role of a response in the evaluation is indicated by using preferable probability as the unique index. Thus, the rational approach for robust design and assessment of product and production is formulated by means of probabilistic multi-objective optimization, which reveals the simultaneous robust designs of both mean value of a response and its dispersion in manner of joint probability. Besides, defuzzification and fuzzification measurements are involved as preliminary approaches for robust assessment, the latter provides miraculous treatment for the 'target the best' case flexibly

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN VI, held in Paris, France in September 2000. The 87 revised full papers presented together with two invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 168 submissions. The presentations are organized in topical sections on analysis and theory of evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming, scheduling, representations and operators, co-evolution, constraint handling techniques, noisy and non-stationary environments, combinatorial optimization, applications, machine learning and classifier systems, new algorithms and metaphors, and multiobjective optimization.

This book focuses on the most well-regarded and recent nature-inspired algorithms capable of solving optimization problems with multiple objectives. Firstly, it provides preliminaries and essential definitions in multi-objective problems and different paradigms to solve them. It then presents an in-depth explanations of the theory, literature review, and applications of several widely-used algorithms, such as Multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimizer, Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm and Multi-objective GreyWolf Optimizer Due to the simplicity of the techniques and flexibility, readers from any field of study can employ them for solving multi-objective optimization problem. The book provides the source codes for all the proposed algorithms on a dedicated webpage.

Machine learning techniques provide cost-effective alternatives to traditional methods for extracting underlying relationships between information and data and for predicting future events by processing existing information to train models. Efficient Learning Machines explores the major topics of machine learning, including knowledge discovery, classifications, genetic algorithms, neural networking, kernel methods, and biologically-inspired techniques. Mariette Awad and Rahul Khanna’s synthetic approach weaves together the theoretical exposition, design principles, and practical applications of efficient machine learning. Their experiential emphasis, expressed in their close analysis of sample algorithms throughout the book, aims to equip engineers, students of engineering, and system designers to design and create new and more efficient machine learning systems. Readers of Efficient Learning Machines will learn how to recognize and analyze the problems that machine learning technology can solve for them, how to implement and deploy standard solutions to sample problems, and how to design new systems and solutions. Advances in computing performance, storage, memory, unstructured information retrieval, and cloud computing have coevolved with a new generation of machine learning paradigms and big data analytics, which the authors present in the conceptual context of their traditional precursors. Awad and Khanna explore current developments in the deep learning techniques of deep neural networks, hierarchical temporal memory, and cortical algorithms. Nature suggests sophisticated learning techniques that deploy simple rules to generate highly intelligent and organized behaviors with adaptive, evolutionary, and distributed properties. The authors examine the most popular biologically-inspired algorithms, together with a sample application to distributed datacenter management. They also discuss machine learning techniques for addressing problems of multi-objective optimization in which solutions in real-world systems are constrained and evaluated based on how well they perform with respect to multiple objectives in aggregate. Two chapters on support vector machines and their extensions focus on recent improvements to the classification and regression techniques at the core of machine learning.

Multiobjective optimization deals with solving problems having not only one, but multiple, often conflicting, criteria. Such problems can arise in practically every field of science, engineering and business, and the need for efficient and reliable solution methods is increasing. The task is challenging due to the fact that, instead of a single optimal solution, multiobjective optimization results in a number of solutions with different trade-offs among criteria, also known as Pareto optimal or efficient solutions. Hence, a decision maker is needed to provide additional preference information and to identify the most satisfactory solution. Depending on the paradigm used, such information may be introduced before, during, or after the optimization process. Clearly, research and application in multiobjective optimization involve expertise in optimization as well as in decision support. This state-of-the-art survey originates from the International Seminar on Practical Approaches to Multiobjective Optimization, held in Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, in December 2006, which brought together leading experts from various contemporary multiobjective optimization fields, including evolutionary multiobjective optimization (EMO), multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) and multiple criteria decision aiding (MCDA). This book gives a unique and detailed account of the current status of research and applications in the field of multiobjective optimization. It contains 16 chapters grouped in the following 5 thematic sections: Basics on Multiobjective Optimization; Recent Interactive and Preference-Based Approaches; Visualization of Solutions; Modelling, Implementation and Applications; and Quality Assessment, Learning, and Future Challenges.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization, EMO 2017 held in Münster, Germany in March 2017. The 33 revised full papers presented together with 13 poster presentations were carefully reviewed and selected from 72 submissions. The EMO 2017 aims to discuss all aspects of EMO development and deployment, including theoretical foundations; constraint handling techniques; preference handling techniques; handling of continuous, combinatorial or mixed-integer problems; local search techniques; hybrid approaches; stopping criteria; parallel EMO models; performance evaluation; test functions and benchmark problems; algorithm selection approaches; many-objective optimization; large scale optimization; real-world applications; EMO algorithm implementations.

This book presents and applies a novel efficient meta-heuristic optimization algorithm called Colliding Bodies Optimization (CBO) for various optimization problems. The first part of the book introduces the concepts and methods involved, while the second is devoted to the applications. Though optimal design of structures is the main topic, two chapters on optimal analysis and applications in constructional management are also included. This algorithm is based on one-dimensional collisions between bodies, with each agent solution being considered as an object or body with mass. After a collision of two moving bodies with specified masses and velocities, these bodies again separate, with new velocities. This collision causes the agents to move toward better positions in the search space. The main algorithm (CBO) is internally parameter independent, setting it apart from previously developed meta-heuristics. This algorithm is enhanced (ECBO) for more efficient applications in the optimal design of structures. The algorithms are implemented in standard computer programming languages (MATLAB and C++) and two main codes are provided for ease of use.

Rubinstein is the pioneer of the well-known score function and cross-entropy methods. Accessible to a broad audience of engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, statisticians and in general anyone, theorist and practitioner, who is interested in smart simulation, fast optimization, learning algorithms, and image processing.