Facts, Conjectures, and Improvements for Simulated Annealing

List of Figures; Preface; Acknowledgments; Part I. Overview. 1. The Place of Simulated Annealing in the Arsenal of Global Optimization; 2. Six Simulated Annealing Problems; 3. Nomenclature; 4. Bare Bones Simulated Annealing; Part II. Facts. 5. Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics; 6. Relaxation Dynamics-Finite Markov Chains; Part III. Improvements and Conjectures. 7. Ensembles; 8. The Brick Wall Effect and Optimal Ensemble Size; 9. The Objective Function; 10. Move Classes and Their Implementations; 11. Acceptance Rules; 12. Thermodynamic Portraits; 13. Selecting the Schedule; 14. Estimating the Global Minimum Energy; Part IV. Towards Structure Theory and Real Understanding. 15. Structure Theory of Complex Systems; 16. What Makes Annealing Tick?; Part V. Resources. 17. Supplementary Materials; Bibliography; Index.