edited by Gade Pandu Rangaiah (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

Optimization has played a key role in the design, planning and operation of chemical and related processes, for several decades. Global optimization has been receiving considerable attention in the past two decades. Of the two types of techniques for global optimization, stochastic global optimization is applicable to any type of problems having non-differentiable functions, discrete variables and/or continuous variables. It, thus, shows significant promise and potential for process optimization.

So far, there are no books focusing on stochastic global optimization and its applications in chemical engineering. Stochastic Global Optimization — a monograph with contributions by leading researchers in the area — bridges the gap in this subject, with the aim of highlighting and popularizing stochastic global optimization techniques for chemical engineering applications. The book, with 19 chapters in all, is broadly categorized into two sections that extensively cover the techniques and the chemical engineering applications.

• Introduction (G P Rangaiah)
• Formulation and Illustration of Luus-Jaakola Optimization Procedure (R Luus)
• Adaptive Random Search and Simulated Annealing Optimizers: Algorithms and Application Issues (J M Jeżowski et al.)
• Genetic Algorithms in Process Engineering: Developments and Implementation Issues (A Younes et al.)
• Tabu Search for Global Optimization of Problems Having Continuous Variables (M K Sim et al.)
• Differential Evolution: Method, Developments and Chemical Engineering Applications (S-Q Chen et al.)
• Ant Colony Optimization: Details of Algorithms Suitable for Process Engineering (V K Jayaraman et al.)
• Particle Swarm Optimization for Solving NLP and MINLP in Chemical Engineering (B Jarboui et al.)
• An Introduction to the Harmony Search Algorithm (G Ingram & T-H Zhang)
• Meta-Heuristics: Evaluation and Reporting Techniques (A Younes et al.)
• A Hybrid Approach for Constraint Handling in MINLP Optimization Using Stochastic Algorithms (G A Durand et al.)
• Application of Luus-Jaakola Optimization Procedure to Model Reduction, Parameter Estimation and Optimal Control (R Luus)
• Phase Stability and Equilibrium Calculations in Reactive Systems Using Differential Evolution and Tabu Search (A Bonilla-Petriciolet et al.)
• Differential Evolution with Tabu List for Global Optimization: Evaluation of Two Versions on Benchmark and Phase Stability Problems (M Srinivas & G P Rangaiah)
• Application of Adaptive Random Search Optimization for Solving Industrial Water Allocation Problem (G Poplewski & J M Jeżowski)
• Genetic Algorithms Formulation for Retrofitting Heat Exchanger Network (R Bochenek & J M Jeżowski)
• Ant Colony Optimization for Classification and Feature Selection (V K Jayaraman et al.)
• Constraint Programming and Genetic Algorithm (P R Kotecha et al.)
• Schemes and Implementations of Parallel Stochastic Optimization Algorithms: Application of Tabu Search to Chemical Engineering Problems (B Lin & D C Miller)