This volume collects the accepted papers presented at the Learning and Intelligent OptimizatioN conference (LION 2007 II) held December 8 12, 2007, in Trento, Italy. The motivation for the meeting is related to the current explosion in the number and variety of heuristic algorithms for hard optimization problems, which raises - merous interesting and challenging issues. Practitioners are confronted with the b- den of selecting the most appropriate method, in many cases through an expensive algorithm configuration and parameter-tuning process, and subject to a steep learning curve. Scientists...

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...