With a view to bringing together researchers and practitioners and to provide a platform for the interchange of information on the multidisciplinary approaches to optimization, ten academic departments/schools of the National University of Singapore jointly organised the International Conference on Optimization Techniques and Applications (ICOTA). It covers all aspects of optimization, and it is the first such conference in the South East Asian region. There were some 160 participants from 28 countries. 114 papers were presented at the Conference. This book contains all the presented papers.