Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest holds all his educational degrees in pure mathematics and had one-year post-doctoral experience in statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. He had been a guest professor of economics, finance, and systems science at several major universities in China, including Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. And currently, he is a professor of mathematics 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 eleven professional journals, including “Kybernetes: the International Journal of Systems, Cybernetics and Management Science,” “Journal of Systems Science and Complexity,” “International Journal of General Systems,” etc. As of the end of 2015, he has published well over 300 research papers and 45 monographs and special topic volumes. Some of these monographs and volumes were published by such prestigious publishers as Springer, World Scientific, Kluwer Academic, Academic Press, etc. Over the years, Dr. Yi Lin’s scientific achievements have been recognized by various professional organizations and academic publishers. In 2001, he was inducted into the Honorary Fellowship of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics. His research interests are wide ranging, covering areas like economics, finance, management, marketing, data analysis, predictions, mathematics, systems research and applications, philosophy of science, etc. Yirong Ying is professor of finance, and is associate chair of Department of Finance, College of Economics, Shanghai University. He earned his B.S. degree in mathematics in 1982 from Mathematics Department of Northwest University (China) and his Ph.D. degree in mathematics in 2000 from Mathematics Department of Xidian University. In 2002, Dr. Ying did one year of post-doctoral study in finance at Institute of Contemporary Finance, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University.Additionally, Dr. Ying has published more than fifties research papers in various professional journals, such as Kybernetes, Advances in Systems Science and Applications, Annuals of Differential Equations, Journal of Management Science, Journal of System Management, Journal of Chang’an University, Chinese Journal of Engineering Mathematics, International Journal of Research in Business and Technology, International Journal of Engineering Mathematics and Computer Sciences. Currently, Professor Ying is a director of Shanghai Financial Engineering Association, System Science, Management Science & System Dynamics Association, and Chinese Enterprise Operations Research Association. He has won numerous Awards of Excellent Research. His works have been financially funded by National Natural Science Foundation (China), the Ministry of Education (China), and various agencies of Shanghai. Zaiwu Gong is professor and specialized in group decision-making, grey systems, and risk analysis. Among his main research achievements, Dr. Gong developed a group consensus decision-making theory based on optimization and a multi-system consensus decision-making theory with decision makers’ (DMs’) intuitive preferences. He proposed a group consensus measure theory with utility constraint by considering DMs behavioral characteristics, and analyzed disaster risk evaluation theory’s impact on rapid consensus decision-making by considering the emergency characteristics of disaster risk. Along these lines, he has published over 70 research papers on such well-known international journals as the European Journal of Operational Research and Omega. His applied works are mainly published in a special issue of Natural Hazards and have been incorporated into the Academic Committee Development Plan for the Chinese Meteorological Society of Meteorological Disasters and Services. Professor Gong has also published four monographs by Science Press and Springer Press and one textbook published by Meteorological Press.Dr. Gong has been involved in more than 20 projects funded at the Chinese national and provincial levels and has directed three projects for the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He led one project for the Humanities and Social Science Foundation of the Chinese National Ministry of Education, and four provincial projects that funded special talents (e.g., the Qinglan Project for the Department of Education, Jiangsu Province; the 333 high-level Talent Training Project, Jiangsu Province; and the Six Talent Peak Project, Jiangsu Province). Dr. Gong has been awarded 10 prizes, including the Excellent Paper Award forthe 4th IEEE International Conference on Grey Systems and Intelligent Services, the Outstanding Paper Award from an international publishing company, and the third prize for Excellent Achievement in Philosophy and Social Science in Jiangsu Province. Dr. Gong has supervised 30 graduates (including five international graduates majoring in business administration). Among his students, two were awarded the Excellent Master’s Thesis of Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, three have won a National Scholarship, and two have won the third prize for the National Graduate Mathematical Modeling Contest.
