This book attempts to present the concepts which underlie the various optimization procedures which are commonly used. It is written primarily for those scientists such as economists, operations researchers, and en gineers whose main tools of analysis involve optimization techniques and who possess a (not very sharp) knowledge of one or one-and-a-half year's calculus through partial differentiation and Taylor's theorem and some acquaintance with elementary vector and matrix terminology. Such a scientist is frequently confronted with expressions such as Lagrange multi pliers, first-and...