high quality are at hand - often yielding reliable automated control and decision proce­ dures. But what, if the models are soft and not all data are around? Can mathematics help as well? This book addresses such issues, e. g. , problems of the following type: - An elevator cannot know all transportation requests in advance. In which order should it serve the passengers? - Wing profiles of aircrafts influence the fuel consumption. Is it possible to con­ tinuously adapt the shape of a wing during the flight under rapidly changing conditions? - Robots are designed to accomplish specific tasks as efficiently as possible. But what if a robot navigates in an unknown environment? - Energy demand changes quickly and is not easily predictable over time. Some types of power plants can only react slowly.