This book aims at attracting the interest of researchers and practitioners around the applicability of meta-heuristic algorithms to practical scenarios arising from different knowledge disciplines. Emphasis is placed on evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence as computational means to efficiently balance the tradeoff between optimality of the produced solutions and the complexity derived from their estimation. In summary, this book serves as a good start point for early-stage investigators in the initial steps of their research on meta-heuristics, grounded on both a thorough literature review and the practical orientation of its contents.