The cross-entropy (CE) method is one of the most significant developments in randomized optimization and simulation in recent years. This book explains in detail how and why the CE method works. The simplicity and versatility of the method is illustrated via a diverse collection of optimization and estimation problems. The book is aimed at 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.

A comprehensive and accessible introduction to the cross-entropy (CE) method Based on an advanced undergraduate course on the CE method, given at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) for the last three years Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt
1 Preliminaries.- 2 A Tutorial Introduction to the Cross-Entropy Method.- 3 Efficient Simulation via Cross-Entropy.- 4 Combinatorial Optimization via Cross-Entropy.- 5 Continuous Optimization and Modifications.- 6 Noisy Optimization with CE.- 7 Applications of CE to COPs.- 8 Applications of CE to Machine Learning.- A Example Programs.- A.1 Rare Event Simulation.- A.2 The Max-Cut Problem.- A.3 Continuous Optimization via the Normal Distribution.- A.4 FACE.- A.5 Rosenbrock.- A.6 Beta Updating.- A.7 Banana Data.- References.