This book grew out a number of distribution and logistics graduate courses we have taught over the last ten years. In the first few years, the emphasis was on very basic models such as the traveling salesman problem, and on the seminal papers of Haimovich and Rinnooy Kan (1985), which analyzed a simple vehicle routing problem, and Roundy (1985), which introduced power-of-two policies and proved that they are effective for the one warehouse multi-retailer distribution system.

Fierce competition in today's global market provides a powerful motivation for developing ever more sophisticated logistics systems. This book, written for the logistics manager and researcher, presents a survey of the modern theory and application of logistics. The goal of the book is to present the state of the art in the science of logistics management.

L'année même de son avènement en 1515, François Ier entre dans l'Histoire avec la victoire de Marignan qui lui vaut le glorieux surnom de Roi-Chevalier. Son règne, fertile en événements majeurs, symbolise un nouvel art de vivre, suscité par la Renaissance. Fasciné par l'Italie et par l'Antiquité, il devient le protecteur des arts, le " Restaurateur de l'humaine science ", s'entoure de créateurs de génie tel Léonard de Vinci. Il se montre aussi diplomate avisé et législateur perspicace. Humain avant d'être roi, galant homme mais non moins homme de cœur, tolérant par nature, inflexible par raison d'Etat, il incarne à la perfection la France de la première moitié du XVIe siècle, alors la plus riche et la plus peuplée des nations de l'Europe.

Heavy-tailed probability distributions are an important component in the modeling of many stochastic systems. They are frequently used to accurately model inputs and outputs of computer and data networks and service facilities such as call centers. They are an essential for describing risk processes in finance and also for insurance premia pricing, and such distributions occur naturally in models of epidemiological spread. The class includes distributions with power law tails such as the Pareto, as well as the lognormal and certain Weibull distributions.

This self-contained monograph presents a new stochastic approach to global optimization problems arising in a variety of disciplines including mathematics, operations research, engineering, and economics. The volume deals with constrained and unconstrained problems and puts a special emphasis on large scale problems. It also introduces a new unified concept for unconstrained, constrained, vector, and stochastic global optimization problems. All methods presented are illustrated by various examples. Practical numerical algorithms are given and analyzed in detail.