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1 – 10 of over 25000Sifeng Liu, Jeffrey Forrest and Yingjie Yang
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the elementary concepts and fundamental principles of grey systems and the main components of grey systems theory. Also to discuss the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the elementary concepts and fundamental principles of grey systems and the main components of grey systems theory. Also to discuss the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the world of learning and its wide‐ranging applications in the entire spectrum of science.
Design/methodology/approach
The characteristics of unascertained systems including incomplete information and inaccuracies in data are analysed and four uncertain theories: probability statistics, fuzzy mathematics, grey system and rough set theory are compared. The scientific principle of simplicity and how precise models suffer from inaccuracies are also shown.
Findings
The four uncertain theories, probability statistics, fuzzy mathematics, grey system and rough set theory are examined with different research objects, different basic sets, different methods and procedures, different data requirements, different emphasis, different objectives and different characteristics.
Practical implications
The scientific principle of simplicity and how precise models suffer from inaccuracies are shown. So, precise models are not necessarily an effective means to deal with complex matters, especially in the case that the available information is incomplete and the collected data inaccurate.
Originality/value
The elementary concepts and fundamental principles of grey systems and the main components of grey systems theory are introduced briefly. The reader is given a general picture of grey systems theory as a new method for studying problems where partial information is known, partial information is unknown; especially for uncertain systems with few data points and poor information.
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Sifeng Liu, Jeffrey Forrest and Robert Vallee
The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific background from which grey systems theory came into being, the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific background from which grey systems theory came into being, the astonishing progress that grey systems theory has made in the world of learning and its wide‐ranging applications in the entire spectrum of science.
Design/methodology/approach
The grey uncertainty is compared with other kinds of uncertainty such as stochastic uncertainty, unascertainty, fuzzy and rough uncertainty.
Findings
The advances in grey systems theory and its various successful applications are introduced individually by algorithms of grey numbers and grey algebraic systems, grey dynamic models and grey predictions, grey optimization analysis for decision making, grey control models.
Research limitations/implications
Many scientific theories require the unremitting efforts of several generations of people and have gone through hundreds of years before reaching maturity and perfection. Grey systems theory is still in its growth period. So, it is unavoidable that there exist immature and imperfect parts in the theory.
Originality/value
Grey systems theory is a new method for studying problems of uncertainty with few data points and poor information. This new theory studies small samples and systems with poor information, which have partial information known, partial information unknown. It describes adequately and monitors effectively systems' operations and evolutions through extracting valuable information from the little known information. Grey systems theory comes into being along with the development of modern systems science and uncertainty systems theories and methods. It is also a result of deepened perceptivity about uncertain systems.
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Sifeng Liu, Yong Tao, Naiming Xie, Liangyan Tao and Mingli Hu
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the advances in grey system theory research and various application achievements in science and engineering. At the same time, it…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the advances in grey system theory research and various application achievements in science and engineering. At the same time, it commemorates the 40th anniversary of the birth of grey system theory and the 10th anniversary of Grey Systems–Theory and Application.
Design/methodology/approach
Firstly, the innovations of theoretical research in grey system theory were summarized and some of the widely recognized new results are briefly described. By searching and combing the research results of grey system theory in China national knowledge infrastructure (CNKI) database and Web of Science by Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), this paper shows the rapid development trend of grey system theory in the past 40 years, and the successful applications of grey system theory in the fields of social sciences, natural sciences and engineering technologies.
Findings
More than 227 thousands literature were found by input 10 phrases such as grey system, grey number and sequence operator etc. in CNKI database. After entering the new century, the number of grey system papers included in CNKI database is increasing rapidly. Since 2008, more than 10 thousands papers have been included per year and more than 15 thousands papers have been included per year since 2014. Grey system method and model are widely used in physics, chemistry, biology and other fields of natural science, as well as transportation, electric power, machinery and other fields of engineering technology, and a large number of valuable results have been achieved.
Practical implications
It can be seen that the grey system theory plays an important role in promoting China’s scientific and technological progress, innovation and development and high-level talent training from tens of thousands of literatures marked with important national science and technology projects and a large number of grey system literatures published by China’s double first-class universities and double first-class discipline construction universities.
Originality/value
Both innovations of theoretical research and practical application play important role in the growth of new theory. The innovations of theoretical research provide methods and tools for practical application, which is conducive to improve application efficiency and broaden application fields. A large number of practical applications needs have become the source of theoretical innovation and the solid background for the birth of theoretical innovation achievements.
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As the grey systems theory has been used over the time in different economic areas, in the following, a short literature review will be put forward, starting from the usage of…
Abstract
Purpose
As the grey systems theory has been used over the time in different economic areas, in the following, a short literature review will be put forward, starting from the usage of these theory in the supply chain management, decision-making process, financial performance evaluation, credit risk, energy consumption, investment efficiency, etc. The purpose of this paper is to identify some key studies from all the economic areas in which the grey systems can be used in order to open and to bring to the researchers new domains in which they can manifest their interest and in which they can successfully use the methods offered by the grey systems theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the search engine offered by the Web of Science, a literature review has been performed for the economic grey systems applications developed over the time on both economic diagnosis and system’s forecasting. In addition, some hybrid grey systems theory – artificial intelligence techniques models have also been presented.
Findings
The grey systems theory has brought its contribution to numerous economic application from various fields such as: supply chain management, decision-making process, financial performance evaluation, credit risk, energy consumption, investment efficiency, firms’ bankruptcy, product development, consumer income, monetization ratio, etc.
Research limitations/implications
The present paper identifies the some of the most representative examples in which the grey theory has been used, but, in the same time, there are a lot of studies that have not been mentioned here due to the lack of space.
Originality/value
Unlike other review papers written on the grey systems theory area, the present paper is only focusing on the economic applications in which this theory has been successfully used, bringing to the reader a general overview on this field and, in the same time, enabling new research perspectives.
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Abstract
Purpose
In order to more accurately predict the dynamics of the e-commerce market and increase the comprehensive value of the circular e-commerce industry, proposes to use Grey system theory to analyze the circular economy of the e-commerce market.
Design/methodology/approach
Construct a Grey system theory model, analyze the big data of e-commerce and circular economy of the e-commerce market and predict the development potential of China's e-commerce market.
Findings
The results show that the Grey system theory model can play an important role in the data analysis of circular economy of the e-commerce market.
Originality/value
Use Grey model to analyze e-commerce data, discover e-commerce market rules and problems and then optimize e-commerce market.
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Li Xuemei, Yun Cao, Junjie Wang, Yaoguo Dang and Yin Kedong
Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey systems in marine economics is gaining importance. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and review literature on grey models, providing new directions in their application in the marine economy.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper organized seminal studies on grey systems published by Chinese core journal database – CNKI, Web of Science and Elsevier from 1982 to 2018. After searching the aforementioned database for the said duration, the authors used the CiteSpace visualization tools to analyze them.
Findings
The authors sorted the studies according to their countries/regions, institutions, keywords and categories using the CiteSpace tool; analyzed current research characteristics on grey models; and discussed their possible applications in marine businesses, economy, scientific research and education, marine environment and disasters. Finally, the authors pointed out the development trend of grey models.
Originality/value
Although researches are combining grey theory with fractals, neural networks, fuzzy theory and other methods, the applications, in terms of scope, have still not met the demand. With the increasingly in-depth research in marine economics and management, international marine economic research has entered a new period of development. Grey theory will certainly attract scholars’ attention, and its role in marine economy and management will gain considerable significance.
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Sifeng Liu, Yingjie Yang, Naiming Xie and Jeffrey Forrest
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the progress in grey system research during 2000-2015, so as to present some important new concepts, models, methods and a new framework…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the progress in grey system research during 2000-2015, so as to present some important new concepts, models, methods and a new framework of grey system theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The new thinking, new models and new methods of grey system theory and their applications are presented in this paper. It includes algorithm rules of grey numbers based on the “kernel” and the degree of greyness of grey numbers, the concept of general grey numbers, the synthesis axiom of degree of greyness of grey numbers and their operations; the general form of buffer operators of grey sequence operators; the four basic models of grey model GM(1,1), such as even GM, original difference GM, even difference GM, discrete GM and the suitable sequence type of each basic model, and suitable range of most used grey forecasting models; the similarity degree of grey incidences, the closeness degree of grey incidences and the three-dimensional absolute degree of grey incidence of grey incidence analysis models; the grey cluster model based on center-point and end-point mixed triangular whitenization functions; the multi-attribute intelligent grey target decision model, the two stages decision model with grey synthetic measure of grey decision models; grey game models, grey input-output models of grey combined models; and the problems of robust stability for grey stochastic time-delay systems of neutral type, distributed-delay type and neutral distributed-delay type of grey control, etc. And the new framework of grey system theory is given as well.
Findings
The problems which remain for further studying are discussed at the end of each section. The reader could know the general picture of research and developing trend of grey system theory from this paper.
Practical implications
A lot of successful practical applications of the new models to solve various problems have been found in many different areas of natural science, social science and engineering, including spaceflight, civil aviation, information, metallurgy, machinery, petroleum, chemical industry, electrical power, electronics, light industries, energy resources, transportation, medicine, health, agriculture, forestry, geography, hydrology, seismology, meteorology, environment protection, architecture, behavioral science, management science, law, education, military science, etc. These practical applications have brought forward definite and noticeable social and economic benefits. It demonstrates a wide range of applicability of grey system theory, especially in the situation where the available information is incomplete and the collected data are inaccurate.
Originality/value
The reader is given a general picture of grey systems theory as a new model system and a new framework for studying problems where partial information is known; especially for uncertain systems with few data points and poor information. The problems remaining for further studying are identified at the end of each section.
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Guo‐Dong Li, Daisuke Yamaguchi and Masatake Nagai
This paper aims to resolve the uncertain problem in suppliers selection chain management system through using the proposed multiple attribute decision‐making (MADM) approach.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to resolve the uncertain problem in suppliers selection chain management system through using the proposed multiple attribute decision‐making (MADM) approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach which combines grey system theory with rough set theory is proposed.
Findings
This proposed approach take advantage of mathematical analysis power of grey system theory and at the same time take advantage of data mining and knowledge discovery power of rough set theory. It will be suitable to decision making under a more uncertain environment.
Originality/value
Provides a viewpoint on the attribute values and attribute weights of rough set decision table for all alternatives are decided by grey number based on grey system theory. The best ideal supplier can be decided by grey relational analysis based on grey number.
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Camelia Delcea, Saad Ahmed Javed, Margareta-Stela Florescu, Corina Ioanas and Liviu-Adrian Cotfas
The Grey System Theory (GST) is an emerging area of research within artificial intelligence. Since its founding in 1982, it has seen a lot of multidisciplinary applications. In…
Abstract
Purpose
The Grey System Theory (GST) is an emerging area of research within artificial intelligence. Since its founding in 1982, it has seen a lot of multidisciplinary applications. In just a short period, it has garnered some considerable strengths. Based on the 1987–2021 data collected from the Web of Science (WoS), the current study reports the advancement of the GST.
Design/methodology/approach
Research papers utilizing the GST in the fields of economics and education were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) platform using a set of predetermined keywords. In the final stage of the process, the papers that underwent analysis were manually chosen, with selection criteria based on the information presented in the titles and abstracts.
Findings
The study identifies prominent authors, institutions, publications and journals closely associated with the subject. In terms of authors, two major clusters are identified around Liu SF and Wang ZX, while the institution with the highest number of publications is Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Moreover, significant keywords, trends and research directions have been extracted and analyzed. Additionally, the study highlights the regions where the theory holds substantial influence.
Research limitations/implications
The study is subject to certain limitations stemming from factors such as the language employed in the chosen literature, the papers included within the Web of Science (WoS) database, the designation of works categorized as “articles” in the database, the specific selection of keywords and keyword combinations, and the meticulous manual process employed for paper selection. While the manual selection process itself is not inherently limiting, it demands a greater investment of time and meticulous attention, contributing to the overall limitations of the study.
Practical implications
The significance of the study extends not only to scholars and practitioners but also to readers who observe the development of emerging scientific disciplines.
Originality/value
The analysis of trends revealed a growing emphasis on the application of GST in diverse domains, including supply chain management, manufacturing and economic development. Notably, the emergence of COVID-19 as a new research focal point among GST scholars is evident. The heightened interest in COVID-19 can be attributed to its global impact across various academic disciplines. However, it is improbable that this interest will persist in the long term, as the pandemic is gradually brought under control.
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For the studies whose purposes are to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation activities of the enterprises, there are some limitations in the…
Abstract
Purpose
For the studies whose purposes are to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation activities of the enterprises, there are some limitations in the measures of industrial characteristics and using traditional statistical techniques. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries using grey system theory. The research results show that grey system theory is suitable to investigate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes the measures of industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises. First, based on the data on Chinese large and medium-sized high-tech enterprises for the period of 2011-2013, this paper applies grey relational analysis to identify the relatively most important indexes on affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises. Second, based on the results from grey relational analysis, this study draws a ranking of the five Chinese high-tech industries in terms of innovation capabilities by grey decision making. Finally, based on the results from grey decision making, this study applies GM (0, N) model to investigate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries.
Findings
The results of this study show that in the evaluation indexes system of innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises, personnel in R & D institutions, R & D personnel, internal expenditure on R & D, expenditure on new product development, expenditure on technology imports, expenditure on technology renovation, and expenditure on technology assimilation and absorption are relatively most important elements affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises. In addition, the two top ranking on innovation capabilities are manufacture of electronic equipment and communication equipment, and manufacture of medicines. At last, the findings indicate that in the measures of industrial characteristics, the three top ranking on affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises are R & D intensity, technology absorption intensity of indigenous high-tech enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises size. The opening level is in the middle position. Technology intensity, market concentration, and state-owned enterprises size are the three bottom ranking on affecting innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises.
Research limitations/implications
This study has some limitations. First, this study is limited to Chinese high-tech industries. The findings may not be applicable to other countries’ high-tech industries. Further studies with other countries’ high-tech industries could be extended and examined how industrial characteristics affect innovation capabilities of the firms in these industries. Second, the measures of industrial characteristics proposed in this study are somewhat theoretically weak. In the future, the authors will further improve the current analysis, and develop the measures of industrial characteristics. Finally, with the advent of the more data with the consistent statistical coverage released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics during the more continuous years, other methods, such as panel data regression model in econometrics could be used to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries. By then, the scholars can compare the results from grey system theory and those from panel data regression model in econometrics.
Practical implications
Appropriate industrial environment is favorable for Chinese high-tech enterprises to feed their innovation capabilities. Scientific evaluation on the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries is of great significance for Chinese high-tech enterprises in exerting technological catch-up and promoting their competitive advantage. The purposed measures of industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises in this paper, and combined methodology based on grey system theory could be applied to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of Chinese high-tech enterprises.
Originality/value
This paper proposes the measures of industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities of high-tech enterprises, and uses grey system theory to evaluate the relationship between industrial characteristics and innovation capabilities within Chinese high-tech industries.
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