Preface: Special issue on control and optimization

In this special issue on Control and Optimization we present papers authored by a selected group of experts in these areas. The growing importance of control theory and optimization has been recognized in recent years. This is due not only to impressive theoretical developments, but also because of numerous applications to engineering, economics, life sciences, etc. This special issue is the tangible record of the special session on optimal control and its applications at AIMS 2016 Meeting which took place in Orlando, Florida, USA, on July 1 - July 5, 2016. Most of the papers collected here have been contributed by participants in the special session. Several invited speakers who were unable to attend the conference also contributed papers to this special issue. All submissions have been carefully refereed. The special issue contains fourteen papers contributed by well-known experts in control and optimization from Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Russia and USA. These papers cover a wide spectrum of important problems and topics of current research interest of control theory and optimization theory such as weak solutions of stochastic reaction diffusion equations, second order necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for singular solutions of partially-affine control problems, hybrid optimal control problems with semilinear parabolic equations, BV-extension of asymptotically constrained control-affine systems, optimal controls for an Ebola epidemic model, linear openness and feedback stabilization of nonlinear control systems, infinite-horizon multiobjective optimal control problems, partial differential equations in consumer theory, equilibrium locus of the flow on circular networks of cells, optimal control of non-autonomous SEIRS models, limit solutions in impulsive control, infinite horizon recursive variational problems in Banach spaces, algorithms for an optimal control problem with coupled hyperbolic and ordinary differential equation constraints and turnpike properties of approximate solutions of Bolza variational problems on large intervals. Therefore we feel that this special issue will be very valuable for many mathematicians and practitioners who are interested in recent developments in control theory and optimization as well as their numerous applications.