This volume contains 16 papers dealing with the methodological and applied aspects of the simulated annealing approach when applied to solve combinatorial optimization problems. More specifically the contents are: The first four papers suggest, test and compare different design strategies for the algorithm. The next 5 papers are dealing with different real-life versions of location problems and the last four papers present a miscellaneous of application areas: clustering, partitioning, image processing and design problems. This collection of papers gives a good picture of the state-of-the-art of the applied aspects of simulated annealing. In addition, this volume also contains an introduction chapter (with an up-to-date list of references0 and a last chapter with the final remarks.
