Polynomial optimization have been a hot research topic for the past few years and its applications range from Operations Research, biomedical engineering, investment science, to quantum mechanics, linear algebra, and signal processing, among many others. In this brief the authors discuss some important subclasses of polynomial optimization models arising from various applications, with a focus on approximations algorithms with guaranteed worst case performance analysis. The brief presents a clear view of the basic ideas underlying the design of such algorithms and the benefits are...