The book covers up-to-date theoretical and applied advances in grey systems theory from across the world and vividly presents the reader with the overall picture of this new theory and its frontier research. Many of the concepts, models and methods in the book are original by the authors, including simplified form of grey number, general grey number and the operations of grey numbers; the axiomatic system of buffer operators and a series of weakening and strengthening operators; a series of grey relational analysis models, including grey absolute, relative, synthetic, similarity, closeness, negative and three dimension degree, etc.; grey fixed weight clustering model, grey evaluation models based on center-point and end-point mixed possibility functions; original difference grey model (ODGM), even difference grey model (EDGM), discrete grey model (DGM), fractional grey models, self-memory grey models; multi-attribute intelligent grey target decision models, weight vector group withkernel and the weighted comprehensive clustering coefficient vector, and spectrum analysis of sequence operators, etc. This book will be appropriate as a reference and/or professional book for courses of grey system theory for graduate students or high-level undergraduate students, majoring in areas of science, technology, agriculture, medicine, astronomy, earth science, economics, and management. It can also be utilized by researchers and practitioners in research institutions, business entities, and government agencies.

Autorentext

Professor Sifeng Liu, Ph.D., distinguished professor of NUAA. Dr Liu has selected into the long-term project of national major talent programs of China, honorary fellow of WOSC, and advanced fellow of MC Fellowships of the EU. He is serving as the founding director of IGSS at NUAA, the founding president of IAGSUA, the founding editor of GS, and the editor-in-chief of JGS and two book series on Grey Systems one in English (Springer-Nature) and the other one in Chinese (Science Press). His literatures have been cited more than 40 thousands. He has listed in top 2% scientists of the world by Stanford University and ranking first in the list of the highly cited authors in the field of system science, with H-index of 91 by Baidu Scholar. On the 7th of September, 2019, Angela Dorothea Merkel, then German Chancellor, praised grey system theory in her speech at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. She said that the work of Professor Julong Deng and Professor Sifeng Liu,both graduated from HUST, "have made a profound impact on the world."

Prof. Yingjie Yang is currently a full professor in Computational Intelligence at Institute of Artificial Intelligence of DMU, UK. He received two Ph.D. degrees both in engineering from Northeastern University, China, in 1994, and in computer science at Loughborough University, UK, in 2008, respectively. He has coordinated a number of international research projects in related fields supported by EU and UK research funding and published over 200 papers on grey systems, fuzzy sets, rough sets, neural networks, and their applications. Dr Yang is the executive president of IAGSUA. He is serving as associate editors in 5 international academic journals, including GS and JGS.

Dr Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest, also known as Yi-Lin, Ph.D., professor of mathematics and research coach for the School of Business at Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania, and the president of the International Institute for General Systems Studies, Inc., Pennsylvania. He serves either currently or in the past on the editorial boards of thirteen professional journals, including "Kybernetes" "Journal of Systems Science and Complexity," "International Journal of General Systems," "The Journal of Grey Systems," etc. and the editor-in-chief of three book series by CRC Press.

Some of Dr Forrest's research was funded by United Nations, State of Pennsylvania, National Science Foundation of China, and German National Research Center for Information Architecture and Software Technology. He has published well over 500 research works, including over 50 monographs and special topic volumes. Over the years, Dr Forrest's scientific achievements have been recognized by various professional organizations and academic publishers. In 2001, he was inducted into the honorary fellowship of WOSC.