Editors

About the Editor

Professor Luigi Fortuna was born in Siracuse (ITALY) in 1953. He received the degree of Electrical Engineering (cum laudae) from the University of Catania in 1977. He was researcher in Electronics up to 1987 when he became Associate Professor of Automatic Control. In that a period he was more time visiting researcher at the JET (Joint European Torus) in Abington (UK) where he worked in the design of control apparatus of the JET machine. Since 1994 he is Full Professor of System Theory. He now teaches the following courses: Complex Adaptive Systems and Robust Control. He has been visiting of more universities and research laboratories between that: the University of California San Diego at the University of California Berkeley, the JET Laboratory (Abington), the IAMAHA (Japan). He has published more than 800 technical papers and is coauthor of 14 scientific books among which: A Concise Guide to Chaotic Electronic Circuits (Springer 2014), Optimal and Robust Control: Advanced Topics with MATLAB (CRC Press, 2012), From Physics to Control through an Emergent View (World Scientific 2010), Modelling, Estimation and Control of Networked Complex Systems (Springer, 2009), Chua's circuit implementations (World Scientific, 2009), Advanced Topics on Cellular Self-Organizing Nets and Chaotic Nonlinear Dynamics to Model and Control Complex Systems (World Scientific, 2008), Soft Sensors for Monitoring and Control of Industrial Processes (Springer, 2006), Bio-Inspired Emergent Control of Locomotion Systems (World Scientific, 2004), Soft- Computing (Springer 2001), Nonlinear Non Integer Order Circuits and Systems (World Scientific 2001), Cellular Neural Networks (Springer 1999), Neural Networks in Multidimensional Domains (Springer 1998), Model Order Reduction in Electrical Engineering (Springer 1994), Robust Control - An Introduction (Springer 1993). His scientific interests include: Robust Control, Nonlinear Science and Complexity, Chaos, Cellular Neural Networks, Soft-Computing Strategies for Control, Robotics, Micro-Nanosensor and Smart Devices for Control, Nano-Cellular Neural Networks Modelling. He was the coordinator of the courses in Electronic Engineering. He was in charge for project of MURST with University of San Diego California for an educational program including Graduate and Undergraduate students (1999-2003). He was responsible for the University of Catania of two EU projects: Clawar (Climbing and Walking Robots) and DICTAM (Dynamic Image Computing using Tera- Speed Analogic Visual Microprocessors) (2001-2005). He had a contract with Joint Europeam Torus (EURATOM) (Abington-UK) for the period 1/1/98-31/12/98 for the use of Intelligent Tecniques in Fault Pulse Validation. He is responsible of the EU project (EUROFUSION) in collaboration with ENEA (Frascati) in the area of Plasma Control (2014-2018). He was responsible of two projects supported by Italian Spatial Agency: one on the Maars Mission and the other one on Multifunctional Modular Robotic Platforms. He was the coordinator of the project FIRB RBNE01CW3M “Cellular Self-organizing nets and chaotic nonlinear dynamics to model and control complex systems” (2002-2005). He was scientific coordinator of the project PRIN 2003 and 2005. He was scientific responsible of a Research Unit in projects PRIN 1994, 1995 and 1996. He was the scientific responsible for several bilateral projects: bilateral project Italy-Hungary in the framework of the XVII executive programme of scientific and technological co-operation between Italy and Hungary for the years 2008-2010”; bilateral project Italy-Poland in the framework of the “XIX executive programme of scientific and technological co-operation between Italy and Poland for the years 2007-2009; bilateral VIGONI project Italy-Germany 2009-2010. He is Fellow of the IEEE. He was IEEE CAS Chairman of the CNN Technical Committee, IEEE CAS .Distinguishing Lectures 2001-2002, IEEE Chairman of the IEEE CAS Chapter Central- South ITALY. He served as Associate Editor the IEEE Trans. CAS for the period from July 1997 to June 1999. He was the chairman of CNNA2000, NDES2000 conferences and the 10th Experimental Chaos Conference. He is now the chairman of the “Physics and Control Conference” (PhysCon 2009). He is Member of more international Editorial Board of scientific journals. Particular contribution has been given by prof. Fortuna to the cooperation of University of Catania with ST Microelectronics Company in the field of Fuzzy Logic Controller Design and in the area of Soft- Computing and Multimedia Applications, in the area of Nonlinear Circuits. Prof. Fortuna is coauthors of 12 Industrial Patents. He has been is in charge of several R&D projects with industrial partners italian, EU and USA universities. He has been in the Evaluation Board of Politecnico di Bari (1999/2000) and of the Evaluation Board of the Università degli Studi di Catania (1999/2006) From 2002 to 2005 he was in charge as Chair of the Department of Electrical Electronics and System Engineering. He directs since November 1996 the PhD course in Systems Engineering (in the past called PhD course in Electronics, Automation and Control of Complex Systems) at the University of Catania. He directed two Masters in Microelectronics and Systems at the Scuola Superiore dell’ Università di Catania (1999-2001), where he was also in the Administrative Board (2001-2005). Since November 2005 until October 2012 he has been the Dean of the Engineering Faculty. Since January 2009 he is Reviewer for the National Science Foundation (USA). He has been the coordinator of the Quality Board for the University of Catania (from 01/11/2012 to 31/05/2013). He has been coordinator of the PON project "Ambition Power - Formazione". He has been in the national board for PRIN MIUR 2009, Area 09. According to Google Scholar it results: Citations 8961. Indeces: H 44 (May 5, 2016). According to ISI it results H 34 (May 5, 2016).

Professor Guanrong Chen received the M.Sc. degree in computational mathematics from Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University, China in 1981, and the Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from Texas A&M University, USA in 1987. He worked at Rice University as a visiting assistant professor in 1987-1990, at the University of Houston through tenure track till became a tenured full professor in 1990-1999, and then at City University of Hong Kong as a chair professor and the founding director of the Centre for Chaos and Complex Networks from year 2000.

Prof. Chen was elected IEEE Fellow in 1996, for his fundamental contributions to the theory and applications of chaos control and bifurcation analysis, and was conferred Honorary Doctorates by Saint Petersburg State University of Russia in 2011 and by University of Le Havre of France in 2014. He was elected Member of the Acadamy of Europe in 2014 and Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in 2015.

Prof. Chen's main research pursuit is in one of the focusing areas in engineering - nonlinear systems control and dynamics, as well as complex networks. He is the (co)author of more than 550 SCI journal papers and 300 conference abstracts, published since 1981, receiving more than 40,000 non-self citations with h_index 98 according to Scopus, and is a Highly Cited Researcher in Engineering as well as in Physics according to Thomson Reuters. He is also the (co)author of 28 technical books.

　He received numerous prestigious awards, particularly the 2011 Euler Gold Medal conferred by the Euler Foundation of Russia, 2008 and 2012 State Natural Science Awards of China, and 2010 Ho-Leung-Ho-Lee Science and Technology Award. Other significant awards include the 1993 Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award from the University of Houston, the 1998 Harden-Simons Annual Prize for Outstanding Journal Paper from the American Society of Engineering Education, the 2001 IEEE M. Barry Carlton Best Annual Paper Award from the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, the 2002 Best Paper Award from the Institute of Information Theory and Automation, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the 2005 IEEE Guillemin-Cauer Best Annual Paper Award from the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, and the 2013 IET Premium Best Paper Award. He served and is serving as Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine (since 2008), Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos (since 2010), Deputy Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Circuits Theory and Applications (2008-2009) and the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems - II and -I (2004-2007), as Associate Editor for several IEEE and international journals. He served as chairman and organizer for many international workshops and conferences, and was the Chairman of the Nonlinear Circuits and Systems Technical Committee of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (1999-2001) and is the Chairman of the Complex Systems and Networks Technical Committee of the Chinese Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (since 2009).

In the past, Prof. Chen was invited to give lectures and seminars in more than 30 countries. He is Honorary Professor, Advisory Professor and Guest-Chair Professor of 30 some universities worldwide, including Honorary Professor of the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Argentina; Honorary Professor of the Central Queensland University and University of Ballarat, Australia; Honorary Adjunct Professor of University of Houston, USA; Chang-Jiang Chair Professor of Peking University; Honorary Advisory Professor of Fudan University; and Honorary Guest-Chair Professor of Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Sun Yat-sen University, among others.