Editorial of the special issue data analysis and intelligent optimization with applications

This special issue on “Data Analysis and Intelligent Optimization with Applications” follows a previous special issue of this journal on the interplay of Machine Learning and Optimization, “Model Selection and Optimization in ML” (Machine Learning 85:1-2, October 2011). This time we shift our focus to applications of data analysis and optimization techniques. Optimization problems underliemostmachine learning approaches.Due to emergence of new practical applications, new problems and challenges for traditional approaches arise. Emergent applications generate new data analysis problems, which, in turn boost new research in optimization. The contribution of machine learning researchers into the field of optimization is of considerable significance and should not be overlooked. This special issue collected solutions, adapted for real world problems, leading to massive and large-scale data sets, online data and imbalanced data. We encouraged submission of papers, devoted to combining machine learning and data analysis techniques with advances in optimization to produce methods of Intelligent Optimization, both theoretical and practical. Our goal for this special issue was to bring together researchers working in different areas, related to analytics and optimization. The special issue includes papers on a variety of topics, including, but not limited to