There are numerous individuals without whose help this book would not have been completed. Special thanks go to Professor James Lam from The University of Hong Kong, Professor Daniel W. C. Ho from City University of Hong Kong, Professor Zidong Wang from Brunel University, Professor Wei Xing Zheng from University of Western Sydney, Professor Yugang Niu from East China University of Science and Technology and Professor Huijun Gao from Harbin Institute of Technology, for their valuable suggestions, constructive comments and support.

Next, our acknowledgements go to many colleagues who have offered support and encouragement throughout this research effort. In particular, we would like to acknowledge the contributions from Jianbin Qiu, Ming Liu, Guanghui Sun, and Hongli Dong. Thanks also go to our students, Rongni Yang, Xiuming Yao, Fanbiao Li, Xiaozhan Yang, Chunsong Han, Yongyang Xiong, and Huiyan Zhang, for their comments. The authors are especially grateful to their families for their encouragement and never-ending support when it was most required. Finally, we would like to thank the editors at Wiley for their professional and efficient handling of this project.

The writing of this book was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61174126, 61222301, 61134001, 61333012, 61174058), the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation (141059), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (HIT.BRETIV.201303), the Australian Research Council (DP140102180), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK (EP/F029195), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2013YJS021), the National Key Basic Research Program, China (2011CB710706, 2012CB215202), the 111 Project (B12018), and the Key Laboratory of Integrated Automation for the Process Industry, Northeast University.