Global Optimization has emerged as one of the most exciting new areas of mathematical programming. Global optimization has received a wide attraction from many fields in the past few years, due to the success of new algorithms for addressing previously intractable problems from diverse areas such as computational chemistry and biology, biomedicine, structural optimization, computer sciences, operations research, economics, and engineering design and control. This book contains refereed invited papers submitted at the 4th international confer ence on Frontiers in Global Optimization held at Santorini, Greece during June 8-12, 2003. Santorini is one of the few sites of Greece, with wild beauty created by the explosion of a volcano which is in the middle of the gulf of the island. The mystic landscape with its numerous mult-extrema, was an inspiring location particularly for researchers working on global optimization. The three previous conferences on "Recent Advances in Global Opti mization", "State-of-the-Art in Global Optimization", and "Optimization in Computational Chemistry and Molecular Biology: Local and Global approaches" took place at Princeton University in 1991, 1995, and 1999, respectively. The papers in this volume focus on de terministic methods for global optimization, stochastic methods for global optimization, distributed computing methods in global optimization, and applications of global optimiza tion in several branches of applied science and engineering, computer science, computational chemistry, structural biology, and bio-informatics.

Inhalt
A Deterministic Global Optimization Algorithm for Problems with Nonlinear Dynamics.- Exact solution of three nonconvex quadratic programming problems.- Global Optimization of Bioprocesses using Stochastic and Hybrid Methods.- Computational Experiments with an Adaptive Genetic Algorithm for Global Minimization of Potential Energy Functions.- A New Approach in Deterministic Global Optimisation of Problems with Ordinary Differential Equations.- Global Optimization of Homogeneous Polynomials on the Simplex and on the Sphere.- Exact parallel algorithms for the location depth and the maximum feasible subsystem problems.- An Improved Method for the Computation of Affine Lower Bound Functions for Polynomials.- Implementation and Testing of a Branch-and-Bound Based Method for Deterministic Global Optimization: Operations Research Applications.- MINLP Optimization Using Simplicial Approximation Method for Classes of Non-Convex Problems.- A General Framework for Constructing Cooperative Global Optimization Algorithms.- Constrained Global Optimization Adaptive Gradient Flows.- Exact Computation of Global Minima of a Nonconvex Portfolio Optimization Problem.- Global Reliability-Based Design Optimization.- Reducing the Cost of Evaluation of the Gradient and Hessian of Molecular Potential Energy Functions.- Global Dynamic Optimization of Linear Hybrid Systems.- AMIGO: Advanced Multidimensional Interval analysis Global Optimization.- Trilinear Monomials with Positive or Negative Domains: Facets of the Convex and Concave Envelopes.- Analysis of Nonconvex Polynomial Programs by the Method of Moments.- The Steiner Ratio and the Homochirality of Biomacromolecular Structures.- A Multi Dimensional Assignment Formulation For New Product Development Problems.- Quasiconvexity, Fractional Programming and Extremal Traffic Congestion.- Optimal Solution of Integer Multicommodity Flow Problems With Application in Optical Networks.- Pre-search Screening: A Technique to Improve Search Efficiency in Global Optimization.- Global Optimization of Bilevel Programming Problems via Parametric Programming.- Global Solution of Optimization Problems with Dynamic Systems Embedded.- A multi-start methodology for constrained global optimization using novel constrained local optimizers.- Representation and numerical determination of the global optimizer of a continuous function on a bounded domain.- Global Optimization under nonlinear restrictions by using stochastic perturbations of the projected gradient.- On the Existence of Polyhedral Convex Envelopes.- Optimal Selection of the Regression Kernel Matrix with Semidefinite Programming.- Termination Criteria in the Moore-Skelboe Algorithm for Global Optimization by Interval Arithmetic.