World leading experts give their accounts of the modern mathematical models in the field: Markov Decision Processes, Controlled Diffusions, etc, with a wide range of performance functionals. One of the aims is to give a general view on the state-of-the-art. The authors use Dynamic Programming, Convex Analytic Approach, several Approximate and Numerical Methods, Index-Based Approach and so on. Most chapters either contain well developed examples, or are entirely devoted to the application of the mathematical control theory to real life problems from such fields as Insurance, Portfolio...