INTEGRATED METHODS FOR OPTIMIZATION

The first edition of Integrated Methods for Optimization was published in January 2007. Because the book covers a rapidly developing field, the time is right for a second edition. The book provides a unified treatment of optimization methods. It brings ideas from mathematical programming (MP), constraint programming (CP), and global optimization (GO)into a single volume. There is no reason these must be learned as separate fields, as they normally are, and there are three reasons they should be studied together. (1) There is much in common among them intellectually, and to a large degree they can be understood as special cases of a single underlying solution technology. (2) A growing literature reports how they can be profitably integrated to formulate and solve a wide range of problems. (3) Several software packages now incorporate techniques from two or more of these fields.