Computational Economics in the Era of Natural Computationalism

After a brief review of natural computationalism, this introductory chapter presents a new skeleton of computational economics and finance (CEF) along with an overview of the handbook. It begins with a conventional pursuit focusing on the algorithmic or numerical aspect of CEF such as computational efforts devoted to rational expectations, (dynamic) general equilibrium, and volatility. It then moves toward an automata- or organism-based perspective of CEF, involving nature-inspired intelligence, algorithmic trading, automated markets, network- and agent-based computing, and neural computing. As an alternative way to introduce this novel skeleton, the chapter starts with a view of computation or computing, addressing what computational economics intends to compute and what kinds of economics make computation so hard, and then it turns to a view of computing systems in which the Walrasian kind of computational economics is replaced by the Wolframian kind due to computational irreducibility.

Algorithmic Trading based on Biologically Inspired Algorithms

The chapter discusses algorithmic trading, which refers to any automated process, consisting of a number of interconnected components, whose main aim is to perform financial transactions of any kind. Its chief advantage lies in the fact that human intervention is minimized to an acceptable extent. This is quite desirable because nowadays numerous factors affect financial decisions. Financial managers are able to deal with a limited amount of information. There are many ways to implement algorithmic trading systems. This chapter aims to highlight the efficiency of biologically inspired methodologies when incorporated in such systems. Biologically inspired intelligence comprises a range of algorithms whose common philosophy is based on the behavior of real-world, natural systems and networks. What is more, the performance of the applied nature-inspired intelligence (NII) methodologies is compared to traditional benchmark approaches such as the random portfolio construction.

Algorithms and Methods Inspired from Nature for Solving Supply Chain and Logistics Optimization Problems

The current work surveys 245 papers and research reports related to algorithms and methods inspired from nature for solving supply chain and logistics optimization problems. Nature Inspired Intelligence (NII) is a challenging new subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) particularly capable of dealing with complex optimization problems. Related approaches are used either as stand-alone algorithms, or as hybrid schemes i.e. in combination to other AI techniques. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Particle Swarm Optimization, Artificial Bee Colonies, Artificial Immune Systems and DNA Computing are some of the most popular approaches belonging to nature inspired intelligence. On the other hand, supply chain management represents an interesting domain of OR applications, including a variety of hard optimization problems such as vehicle routing (VRP), travelling salesman (TSP), team orienteering, inventory, knapsack, supply network problems, etc. Nature inspired intelligent algorithms prove capable of identifying near optimal solutions for instances of those problems with high degree of complexity in a reasonable amount of time. Survey findings indicate that NII can cope successfully with almost any kind of supply chain optimization problem and tends to become a standard in related scientific literature during the last five years.

Algorithms and Methods Inspired from Nature for Solving Supply Chain and Logistics Optimization Problems

The current work surveys 245 papers and research reports related to algorithms and methods inspired from nature for solving supply chain and logistics optimization problems. Nature Inspired Intelligence (NII) is a challenging new subfield of artificial intelligence (AI) particularly capable of dealing with complex optimization problems. Related approaches are used either as stand-alone algorithms, or as hybrid schemes i.e. in combination to other AI techniques. Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Particle Swarm Optimization, Artificial Bee Colonies, Artificial Immune Systems and DNA Computing are some of the most popular approaches belonging to nature inspired intelligence. On the other hand, supply chain management represents an interesting domain of OR applications, including a variety of hard optimization problems such as vehicle routing (VRP), travelling salesman (TSP), team orienteering, inventory, knapsack, supply network problems, etc. Nature inspired intelligent algorithms prove capable of identifying near optimal solutions for instances of those problems with high degree of complexity in a reasonable amount of time. Survey findings indicate that NII can cope successfully with almost any kind of supply chain optimization problem and tends to become a standard in related scientific literature during the last five years.