1 Introduction. - 1. 1 Computational Complexity. - 1. 2 Survey of Optimization Techniques. - 1. 3 Organization of the Book. - 1. 4 Exploratory Problems. - 2 Heuristic Search Methods. - 2. 1 Graph Search Algorithm. - 2. 2 Heuristic Functions. - 2. 3 A* Search Algorithm. - 2. 4 Exploratory Problems. - 3 Hopfield Neural Networks. - 3. 1 Discrete Hopfield Net. - 3. 2 Continuous Hopfield Net. - 3. 3 Content-Addressable Memory. - 3. 4 Combinatorial Optimization. - 3. 5 Exploratory Problems. - 4 Simulated Annealing and Stochastic Machines. - 4. 1 Statistical Mechanics and The Metropolis Algorithm. - 4. 2 Simulated Annealing. - 4. 3 Stochastic Machines. - 4. 4 Exploratory Problems. - 5 Mean Field Annealing. - 5. 1 Mean Field Approximation. - 5. 2 Saddle-Point Expansion. - 5. 3 Stability. - 5. 4 Parameters of the Mean Field Net. - 5. 5 Graph Bipartition An Example. - 5. 6 Exploratory Problems. - 6 Genetic Algorithms. - 6. 1 Simple genetic Operators. - 6. 2 An Illustrative Example. - 6. 3 Why Do Genetic Algorithms Work?. - 6. 4 Other Genetic Operators. - 6. 5 Exploratory Problems. - 7 The Traveling Salesman Problem. - 7. 1 Why Does the Hopfield Net Frequently Fail to Produce Valid Solutions?. - 7. 2 Solving the TSP with Heuristic Search Algorithms. - 7. 3 Solving the TSP with Simulated Annealing. - 7. 4 Solving the TSP with Genetic Algorithms. - 7. 5 An Overview of Eigenvalue Analysis. - 7. 6 Derivation of ?1 of the Connection Matrix. - 7. 7 Exploratory Problems. - 8 Telecommunications. - 8. 1 Satellite Broadcast Scheduling. - 8. 2 Maximizing Data Throughput in An Integrated TDMA Communications System. - 8. 3 Summary. - 8. 4 Exploratory Problems. - 9 Point Pattern Matching. - 9. 1 Problem Formulation. - 9. 2 The Simulated Annealing Framework. - 9. 3 Evolutionary Programming. - 9. 4 Summary. - 9. 5 Exploratory Problems. - 10 Multiprocessor Scheduling. - 10. 1 Model andDefinitions. - 10. 2 Mean Field Annealing. - 10. 3 Genetic Algorithm. - 10. 4 Exploratory Problems. - 11 Job Shop Scheduling. - 11. 1 Types of Schedules. - 11. 2 A Genetic Algorithm for JSP. - 11. 3 Simulation Results. - 11. 4 Exploratory Problems. - References. Language: English