Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms are established tools for the solution of computationally hard problems arising in computer science, business adm- istration, engineering, biology, and various other disciplines. To a large extent, their success is due to their conceptual simplicity, broad applicability and high performance for many important problems studied in academia and enco- tered in real-world applications. SLS methods include a wide spectrum of te- niques, ranging from constructive search procedures and iterative improvement algorithms to more complex SLS methods, such as ant...

Metaheuristics support managers in decision-making with robust tools that provide high-quality solutions to important applications in business, engineering, economics, and science in reasonable time frames, but finding exact solutions in these applications still poses a real challenge. However, because of advances in the fields of mathematical optimization and metaheuristics, major efforts have been made on their interface regarding efficient hybridization.

This edited book will provide a survey of the state of the art in this field by providing some invited reviews by...

LION 3, the Third International Conference on Learning and Intelligent Op- mizatioN, was held during January 14-18 in Trento, Italy. The LION series of conferences provides a platform for researchers who are interested in the int- section of e?cient optimization techniques and learning. It is aimed at exploring the boundaries and uncharted territories between machine learning, arti?cial intelligence, mathematical programming and algorithms for hard optimization problems. The considerable interest in the topics covered by LION was re?ected by the overwhelming number of 86 submissions, which...