Logic minimization algorithms are generally NP, so a lot of bright people have been studying issues of computational complexity. Linear programming is a general optimization technique I know that some recently patented linear programming algorithms in were developed by boolean logic optimization researchers. The EDA branch most often associated with this kind of algorithm is critical path timing analysis. A lot of work has gone into partitioning. Timing analysis and Analog simulations generally depend strongly on numerical methods.
Current research includes work on the convergence problem of numerical integration.
Extracting features from layout to predict electrical parasitics or simply to check layout rules has driven several polygon feature extraction algorithms. There should be some applicability to vision and other algorithms that also extract and identify features from geometric descriptions. There are many excellent books on logic optimization and mapping, and synthesis generally. This book also covers synthesis topics such as scheduling and resource allocation.