This book contains contributions by some of the leading researchers in the area of grey systems theory and applications. All the papers included in this volume are selected from the contributions physically presented at the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Grey Systems and Intelligent Services, November 11 – 12, 2009, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China. This event was jointly sponsored by IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, Natural Science Foundation of China, and Grey Systems Society of China. Additionally, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics also invested heavily in this event with its direct and indirect financial and administrative supports. The conference aimed at bringing together all scholars and experts in the fields of grey systems and intelligent services from around the world to share their cutting edge research results, exchange innovative ideas, promote mutual understanding, and seek potential opportunities for collaboration. The conference program c- mittee received 1054 full paper submissions from 16 countries and geographical regions. Nine hundred sixty four papers were submitted for regular sessions and 90 papers were tunnelled directly for special topic sessions. All the submitted papers, including those aiming at special topic sessions, were rigorously reviewed by at least 3 reviewers. Based on the reviewers’ reports, 251 papers were accepted for oral presentations, while 99 accepted for poster presentations. In other words, only slightly over 33% of the submitted papers were accepted by this conference. The rate of acceptance was lower than one third of the total submissions.

This book focuses on the main advancements made in the economics and social sciences field through the use of grey systems theory. As a result, it addresses both the state of the art and the applications of grey systems theory in economics and social sciences. The book is structured in eight main chapters, covering the following topics: the state of the art in the grey systems theory research in economics and social sciences, which includes a bibliometric analysis, a selection of the most well-cited papers in the field, and a selection of applications in which the grey systems theory is used in the areas of suppliers selection, risk assessment, public opinion assessment, linear programming, complex projects management, social media analysis, and natural language processing Each chapter gives an overview of a particular economic or social sciences topic, providing an explanation on the main terms and methods used for solving the problem, including the notations, terminology, and the needed steps to solve it. A practical application is presented in most of the chapters, while in the others, a series of case studies are presented from the literature and discussed in depth in terms of methods used and advantages brought by each of these methods. The last chapter discusses the hybridization cases in which the grey systems theory has been or can be successfully used along with other artificial intelligence methods and techniques for a more advanced analysis in the economics and social sciences field. The reasoning and the explanations used in the book are easy to understand for the interested persons who are not familiar to the field and want to learn more related on how the grey systems theory can be applied to economics and social sciences. As for the experts in this field, this book can be a good referral point for developing new areas of research by combining the advantages of the grey systems theory with other theories within the field.

Due to inherent limitations in human sensing organs, most data collected for various purposes contain uncertainties. Even at the rare occasions when accurate data are available, the truthful predictions derived on the data tend to create chaotic consequences. So, to effectively process and make sense out of available data, we need methods to deal with uncertainty inherently existing inside the data. The intent of this monograph is to explore the fundamental theory, methods, and techniques of practical application of grey systems theory, initiated by Professor Deng Julong in 1982. This volume presents most of the recent advances of the theory accomplished by scholars from around the world. From studying this book, the reader will not only acquire an overall knowledge of this new theory but also be able to follow the most current research activities. All examples presented are based on practical applications of the theory when urgent real-life problems had to be addressed. Last but not the least, this book concludes with three appendices. The first one compares grey systems theory and interval analysis while revealing the fact that interval analysis is a part of grey mathematics. The second appendix presents an array of different approaches of studying uncertainties. And, the last appendix shows how uncertainties appear using general systems approach.

Due to inherent limitations in human sensing organs, most data collected for various purposes contain uncertainties. Even at the rare occasions when accurate data are available, the truthful predictions derived on the data tend to create chaotic consequences. So, to effectively process and make sense out of available data, we need methods to deal with uncertainty inherently existing inside the data. The intent of this monograph is to explore the fundamental theory, methods, and techniques of practical application of grey systems theory, initiated by Professor Deng Julong in 1982. This volume presents most of the recent advances of the theory accomplished by scholars from around the world. From studying this book, the reader will not only acquire an overall knowledge of this new theory but also be able to follow the most current research activities. All examples presented are based on practical applications of the theory when urgent real-life problems had to be addressed. Last but not the least, this book concludes with three appendices. The first one compares grey systems theory and interval analysis while revealing the fact that interval analysis is a part of grey mathematics. The second appendix presents an array of different approaches of studying uncertainties. And, the last appendix shows how uncertainties appear using general systems approach.

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 with kernel 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.

This book aims to provide a practical guide by a set of real world applications of grey systems to social networks, energy management, transportation, natural disaster management, etc. As an emerging subject on data analysis and uncertainty modelling, the theory of grey systems and its applications have seen significant progress in recent years. However, researchers are still challenged with difficulties in differentiating grey systems from other similar models and a concise and practical guide for their real world applications. This is especially true for researchers in Europe and North American. This book may provide the answer for that. This book is a result of work within the Leverhulme Trust International Research Network on Grey Systems and its Applications. Readers may regard the book as valuable reference in the related fields.