Advancements of Grey Systems Theory in Economics and Social Sciences

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.

Dr. Camelia Delcea is with the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Economic Cybernetics and Informatics Department, Bucharest, Romania. She received the Ph.D. degree in economic cybernetics and statistics from the same university. Her research interests include grey systems theory, agent-based modeling, operations research (optimizing the airplane boarding methods and improving the evacuation process), artificial intelligence systems, companies’ financial and non-financial analysis, risk management, nonlinear and dynamic systems, consumer’s behavior, online social networks, and sentiment analysis. Dr. Delcea is a member of the editorial advisory board of the Grey Systems: Theory and Application journal. She serves as associate editor for IEEE Access, PLOS ONE, Advances in Civil Engineering, Health & Social Care in the Community, International Journal of Grey Systems, Management Sciences Business Decisions journals. Since 2009, Dr. Delcea has obtained 34 international and national awards (＂Best paper award,＂ ＂Georgescu Roegen＂ for excellent scientific research, ＂Excellent paper award,＂ ＂Top reviewers,＂ etc.) and has been invited to deliver a keynote speech on grey systems themes in 2013, 2016, and 2017 at the IEEE GSIS conference and in 2018 at the GSUA conference. She is an active member of the Grey Uncertainty Analysis Association.

Dr. Liviu-Adrian Cotfas is with the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, the Economic Cybernetics and Informatics Department, Bucharest, Romania. His research interests include grey systems theory, machine learning and deep learning techniques, natural language processing, social media analysis, agent-based modeling, recommender systems and semantic web. He has received the Ph.D. degree in economic informatics from the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania). Over the time, Dr. Cotfas has published more than 40 articles in journals such as IEEE Access, Safety Science and Transportmetrica B: Transport Dynamics and has presented his results at more than 30 conferences. He is also the author of several books and book chapters. Dr. Cotfas has received several research awards, including the ＂Georgescu Roegen＂ award for excellent scientific research. Additionally, his research results have also been mentioned in popular media, including the Wired magazine and The New York Times newspaper. He is an active member of the Grey Uncertainty Analysis Association, as well as an associate editor at several journals, including Grey Systems: Theory and Application, IEEE Access and PLOS ONE. He has been an Invited Professor at the University of Technology Belfort-Montbéliard (France) and University of Franche-Comté (France).