| This book is a crystallization of the authors' work over the last twenty-five years. The book covers the latest advances in grey information and systems research, providing a state-of-the-art overview of this important field. Covering the theoretical foundation, fundamental methods and main topics in grey information and systems research, this book includes all the elementary concepts: basic principles, grey numbers and their operations, grey equations and matrices, operators of sequences and generations of grey sequences, grey incidence analysis, grey clusters and grey statistical evaluations, grey systems modeling, grey combined models, grey prediction, grey decisions, grey programming, grey input and output and grey controls, etc. The book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in a wide range of fields including information and systems sciences and management sciences, and to those working in applied areas such as geo-science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, biosciences and others.
Rapid formation and development of new theories of systems science have become an important part of modern science and technology. For example, since the 1940s, there have appeared systems theory, information theory, fuzzy mathematics, cybernetics, dissipative structures, synergetics, catastrophe theory, chaos theory, bifurcations, ultra circulations, dynamics, and many other systems theories. Grey systems theory is also one of such systems theories that appeared initially in the 1980s.
When the research of systems science and the method and technology of systems engineering are applied in various traditional disciplines, such as management science, decision science, and various scientific disciplines, a whole new group of new results and breakthroughs are obtained. Such a historical background has provided the environment and soil for grey systems theory to form and to develop rapidly in the past 20-plus years.
More specifically, in 1982, Professor Deng Ju-Long published the first research paper in the area of grey systems in the international journal entitled Systems and Control Letters, published by North-Holland Co. His paper was titled “Control Problems of Grey Systems.” The publication of this paper signalled the birth of grey systems theory after many years of e..ective research of the founding father. This new theory soon caught the attention of the international academic community and practitioners of science. Many well-known scholars, such as Chinese academicians Qian Xueshen, Song Jian, and Zhang Zhongjun. Professor Roger W. Brockett of Harvard University, a former editor-in-chief of the journal Systems and Control Letters, and several formal Soviet academicians, all provided very positive comments on this new theory and o..ered their support. |
