No foolproof method exists to fit nonlinear curves to data or estimate the parameters of an intrinsically nonlinear function. Some methods succeed at solving a set of problems but fail at the others. The Differential Evolution (DE) method of global optimization is an upcoming method that has...

In this paper we compare the performance of the Barter method, a newly introduced population-based (stochastic) heuristic to search the global optimum of a (continuous) multi-modal function, with that of two other well-established and very powerful methods, namely, the Simulated Annealing (SA)...

In this paper an attempt has been made to fit the Gielis curves (modified by various functions) to simulated data. The estimation has been done by two methods - the Classical Simulated Annealing (CSA) and the Particle Swarm (PS) methods - of global optimization. The Repulsive Particle Swarm...

Ricardo Chacón generalized Johan Gielis's superformula by introducing elliptic functions in place of trigonometric functions. In this paper an attempt has been made to fit the Chacón-Gielis curves (modified by various functions) to simulated data by the least squares principle. Estimation has...

Keane’s bump function is considered as a standard benchmark for nonlinear constrained optimization. It is highly multi-modal and its optimum is located at the non-linear constrained boundary. The true minimum of this function is, perhaps, unknown. We intend in this paper to optimize Keane’s...

In this paper Sato’s two-level CES production function has been estimated by nonlinear regression carried out through five different methods of optimization, namely, the Hooke-Jeeves Pattern Moves (HJPM), the Hooke-Jeeves-Quasi-Newton (HJQN), the Rosenbrock-Quasi-Newton (RQN), the Differential...

Kelvin Lancaster considered a commodity as a bundle of characteristics or a bunch of vectors. The demand for a commodity is therefore a demand for its characteristics. Those characteristics may include time (whether a commodity is old or new), place (its location), positional value (whether it...

This essay draws attention to the fundamental axioms of human nature which the socio-economic policies of India bank upon and analyses why in spite of elaborate planning for development well over a span of fifty years the core economy of the country remains unchanged with wide spread poverty,...

Programs that work very well in optimizing convex functions very often perform poorly when the problem has multiple local minima or maxima. They are often caught or trapped in the local minima/maxima. Several methods have been developed to escape from being caught in such local optima. The...