Niewiadomska-Szynkiewicz, E; Marks, M
One of the major distinctions in optimization is between global and local optimization. One would always want a globally optimal solution to the optimization problem. The local solution is better than any vicinity, but it will not necessary correspond to a best solution. The presented paper is concerned with parallel global optimization techniques that can be applied to solve complex optimization problems. We describe an open architecture software environment EPOCS Environment for Parallel Optimization of Complex Systems) that provides the framework and tools which allow to solve complex optimization problems on parallel and multi-core computers. The practical example - calculating the optimal prices of products that are sold in the market is presented to illustrate the range of applications of our tool.