@article{48b5e52e54f54a6aba97b2a02c177e60,
title = "Preface",
author = "Branislav Hr{\'u}z and Mengchu Zhou",
note = "Funding Information: The second author thanks his doctoral thesis advisor Dr. Frank DiCesare, Prof.-Emeritus, and committee members (now friends), Prof. Alan Desrochers, and Prof. Arthur Sanderson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA. It is they who introduced him to this exciting field and helped advance his professional career. He would also like to thank many pioneers in the area of Petri nets including Prof. N. Viswanadham, National Singapore University, Prof. T. Murata, University of Illinois at Chicago, Prof. K. Lautenbach, University of Koblenz, and Prof. Y. Narahari, Indian Institute of Science. He is also grateful for the great professional help and friendship of Prof. P.B. Luh, University of Connecticut, Prof. F. Lewis, University of Texas at Arlington, Prof. J. Tien, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Prof. W. Gruver, Simon Fraser University, and Prof. T.T. Lee, National Chiao-Tung University. During the past many years, he has enjoyed the happy collaboration and friendship with Prof. MuDer Jeng, National Taiwan Ocean University, M.P. Fanti, Polytechnic di Baris, Prof. Jiacun Wang, University of Monmouth, Prof. Naiqi Wu, Guangdong University of Technology, Prof. Zhiwu Li, Xidian University, and Prof. Yushun Fan, Tsinghua University. I owe a great deal to many graduate advisees, especially, Dr. K. Venkatesh of AIG, Dr. H. Xiong of Alcatel-Lucent, Prof. Ying Tang of Rowan University, Prof. Meimei Gao of Seton Hall University, and Dr. Jianqiang Li of NEC. The second author{\textquoteright}s close friend and colleague, Prof. Fei-Yue Wang, University of Arizona, has been very instrumental and helpful in this project and many others. The work is partially supported by the China National Science Foundation under Grant 60574066, Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant No. 2F05NO1, New Jersey Commission of Science and Technology, and Chang Jiang Scholar Program, Ministry of Education, PRC.",
year = "2007",
language = "English (US)",
pages = "ix--xii",
journal = "Advanced Textbooks in Control and Signal Processing",
issn = "1439-2232",
publisher = "Springer International Publishing AG",
number = "9781846288722",
}