Search Methodologies

The first edition of Search Methodologies: Introductory Tutorials in Optimization and Decision Support Techniques was originally put together to offer a basic introduction to the various search and optimization techniques that students might need to use during their research, and this new edition continues this tradition. Search Methodologies has been expanded and brought completely up to date, including new chapters covering scatter search, GRASP, and very large neighborhood search. The chapter authors are drawn from across Computer Science and Operations Research and include some of the worlds leading authorities in their field. The book provides useful guidelines for implementing the methods and frameworks described and offers valuable tutorials to students and researchers in the field. As I embarked on the pleasant journey of reading through the chapters of this book, I became convinced that this is one of the best sources of introductory material on thesearch methodologies topic to be found. The books subtitle, Introductory Tutorials in Optimization and Decision Support Techniques, aptly describes its aim, and the editors and contributors to this volume have achieved this aim with remarkable success. The chapters in this book are exemplary in giving useful guidelines for implementing the methods and frameworks described. Fred Glover, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder, USA [The book] aims to present a series of well written tutorials by the leading experts in their fields. Moreover, it does this by covering practically the whole possible range of topics in the discipline. It enables students and practitioners to study and appreciate the beauty and the power of some of the computational search techniques that are able to effectively navigate through search spaces that are sometimes inconceivably large. I am convinced that this second edition will build on the success of the first edition andthat it will prove to be just as popular. Jacek Blazewicz, Institute of Computing Science, Poznan University of Technology and Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences