Criteria and Methods of Structural Optimization 87 This volume contains the articles Pathologisches Institut der Universität This volume contains the articles contributed to the Minnesota Con ference on Complex Analysis (COCA) Isomerisation and Rearrangement Reactions of Carbohydrates Chapter 2 gives the foundations of optimization for minimum elastic strain potential or maximum rigidity The vast number and wide range of structural optimization problems formulated and investigated in the last twenty years call for an attempt to sum up the pres ent state of knowledge in this domain and to outline the directions of its further development