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Optimization problems abound in most fields of science, engineering and technology. In many of these problems it is necessary to compute the global optimum (or a good approximation) of a multivariable function. The variables that define the function to be optimized can be continuous and/or discrete and, in addition, they often have to satisfy certain constraints. Global optimization problems belong to the complexity class of NP-hard problems. Such problems are difficult to solve; traditional descent optimization algorithms based on local information are inadequate for solving them. In most cases of practical interest the number of local optima increases, on the average, exponentially with the size of the problem (number of variables). Furthermore, most of the traditional approaches fail to escape from a local optimum in order to continue the search for the global solution. Global optimization has received a lot of attention in recent years, due to the success of new algorithms for solving large classes of problems from diverse areas such as computational chemistry and biology, structural optimization, computer sciences, operations research, economics, and engineering design and control. This work contains papers presented at the conference on State of the Art in Global Optimization: Computational Methods and Applications held at Princeton University, April 28-30, 1995. The conference presented current research on global optimization and related applications in science and engineering. The papers included cover a wide spectrum of approaches for solving global optimization problems and applications.
