Ordinal Optimization: Soft Optimization for Hard Problems

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Performance evaluation of increasingly complex human-made systems requires the use of simulation models. However, these systems are difficult to describe and capture by succinct mathematical models. The purpose of this book is to address the difficulties of the optimization of complex systems via simulation models or other computation-intensive models involving possible stochastic effects and discrete choices. This book establishes distinct advantages of the softer ordinal approach for search-based type problems, analyzes its general properties, and shows the many orders of magnitude improvement in computational efficiency that is possible.