Ordinal optimization of DEDS

In this paper we argue thatordinal rather thancardinal optimization, i.e., concentrating on finding good, better, or best designs rather than on estimating accurately the performance value of these designs, offers a new, efficient, and complementary approach to the performance optimization of systems. Some experimental and analytical evidence is offered to substantiate this claim. The main purpose of the paper is to call attention to a novel and promising approach to system optimization.This work is supported by NSF grants CDR-88-03012, DDM-89-14277, ONR contracts N00014-90-J-1093, N00014-89-J-1023, and army contracts DAAL-03-83-K-0171, DAAL-91-G-0194.