Presentation of the Main Metaheuristics -- Simulated Annealing -- Tabu Search -- Evolutionary Algorithms -- Ant Colony Algorithms -- Variants, Extensions and Methodological Advices -- Some Other Metaheuristics -- Extensions -- Methodology -- Case Studies -- Optimization of UMTS Radio Access Networks with Genetic Algorithms -- Genetic Algorithms Applied to Air Traffic Management -- Constraint Programming and Ant Colonies Applied to Vehicle Routing Problems.

Metaheuristics for Hard Optimization comprises of three parts. The first part is devoted to the detailed presentation of the four most widely known metaheuristics: • the simulated annealing method, • tabu search, • the evolutionary algorithms, • ant colony algorithms. Each one of these metaheuristics is actually a family of methods, of which the essential elements are discussed. In the second part, the book presents some other less widespread metaheuristics, then, extensions of metaheuristics and some ways of research are described . The problem of the choice of a metaheuristic is posed and solution methods are discussed. The last part concentrates on three case studies from telecommunications, air traffic control, and vehicle routing.