Ho Y.-C., Zhao Q.-C., Jia Q.-S. Ordinal Optimization. Soft Optimization for Hard Problems

Springer, 2007. — 333 p.This book is a research monograph dealing with the subject of performance evaluation and optimization for complex systems. At the same time, it can be used and has been used as the main textbook for a first-year graduate course at Harvard University and Tsinghua University for the past 15 years. Exercises are included throughout the book.
According to the authors’ experience, engineering methodology or tools can be more easily taught and accepted when it is applied in a specific area no matter how narrow or broad it may be. In this way, students usually have more incentives to study further and are more likely to better appreciate the importance of and the raison d’etre for various features of the methodology. Such an appreciation of what is essential is a useful skill for students to acquire regardless of their career choice later on.
This book focuses on the performance evaluation and optimization of complex human made systems, which are known as Discrete Event dynamic Systems (DEDS), such as automated manufacturing plants, large communication networks, traffic systems of all kinds, and various paper processing bureaucracies, etc. There is no simple analytical model for the description of such systems, such as differential equations, since such systems are mostly developed according to human made rules of operation rather than physical laws. Brute force simulation models are often the only choice. If traditional methods are used, the computational burden relating to evaluation and optimization of simulation models often renders their solutions computationally infeasible. Ordinal Optimization (OO) is a methodology invented in early 1990s to get around this fundamental difficulty. After more than 14 years’ development, it becomes a complete methodology covering all the aspects of applying the methodology to practical problems. A large number of works on the subject are ready for reference (Shen et al. 2007). A book collecting all the information in one place seems to be in order.Ordinal Optimization Fundamentals.
Comparison of Selection Rules.
Vector Ordinal Optimization.
Constrained Ordinal Optimization.
Memory Limited Strategy Optimization.
Additional Extensions of the OO Methodology.
Real World Application Examples.
A Fundamentals of Simulation.
B Introduction to Stochastic Processes and Generalized Semi-Markov Processes as Models for Discrete Event Dynamic Systems.
C Universal Alignment Tables for the Selection Rules in Chapter III.
D Exercises.