In this paper we carry out a preliminary exploration of a time scales’ conjecture, whichpostulates that “reasonable” notions of sustainability must include a suitable synchronisationof time scales of both the processes of human development and those of the naturalenvironment. We perform...

<Para ID="Par1">Clustering is an important problem in data mining. It can be formulated as a nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization problem. For the most global optimization techniques this problem is challenging even in medium size data sets. In this paper, we propose an approach that allows one to apply local...</para>

The theory of production focuses on the quantitative analysis of input/ outputrelations.Based on the economic principle, technical efficiency is considered asa matter of rationality and as a necessary condition for profit-optimization. Dueto this assumption, technically inefficient production...

We propose two restricted memory level bundle-like algorithms for minimizing a convex function over a convex set. If the memory is restricted to one linearization of the objective function, then both algorithms are variations of the projected subgradient method. The first algorithm, proposed in...

We propose and study a new method, called the Interior Epigraph Directions (IED) method, for solving constrained nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization. The IED method considers the dual problem induced by a generalized augmented Lagrangian duality scheme, and obtains the primal solution by...