Xu Shou-bo, born in 1931 in Shao-xing City, Zhe-jiang Province, is a scientist of Comprehensive Energy Engineering (CEE), a scientist of Technological Economics (TE), and an expert in Comprehensive Material Flow Engineering (CMFE). He is the President of The Institute of Comprehensive Energy Engineering and Technological Economics, the President of Academy of Material Flow , and the Director of Academic Committee of the Center for Infrastructure Research in Beijing Jiaotong University. He is also a professor and doctoral advisor at Beijing Jiaotong University.

Professor Xu is a Chinese trailblazer in Comprehensive Energy Engineering and is widely recognized as a prominent founder of the Comprehensive Energy Engineering in China. He is a pioneer and main founder of Technological Economics in China. He is also a leading researcher in the field of “Science and Technology of Material Flow".

Mr. Xu graduated from Department of Power, Nanjing Institute of Technology in 1955. He then graduated from Energy Institute of USSR Academy of Science in 1960 and was awarded a Doctor’s Degree in Technological Science. He was elected as a committee member of The China Association for Science and Technology (Second Conference)，appointed by the State Committee of Science and Technology PRC as a team member of the Expert Penal for the Comprehensive Utilization of Combustible Minerals，and served as an advisor for State Committee of Energy PRC. He was also a Senior Advisor of the Ministry of Energy PRC，director of Research Bureau of Energy office of the State Council PRC，a Standing Chairman for the First Council of Beijing Energy Society, a Standing Chairman of the First Council of China Energy Bases Research Society，the first leader of the Comprehensive Energy Research Department of Chinese Academy of Science (Currently known as the Energy Institute of National Development and Reform Commission PRC).

He appointed by the State Committee of Science and Technology PRC as a team member of the Expert Penal for Technological Economics and Modern Management ， a Chairman of the First Council of China Technological Economics Research Society ， a member of the Advisory Penal for China Technological Economics Research Society ， the first President of Technological Economics Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Science (Currently known as the Institute of Quantitative Economics and Technological Economics), the first Department Head of Graduate School's Technological Economics Department (Currently as the Department of Quantitative Economics and Technological Economics) ， the President of the Institute of Technological Economics of State Committee of Planning PRC.

He was the first standing chairman for the China Material Flow/Logistics Research Society ， an advisor of the China Association for Materials Technology Development ， the first director of the MF/Logistics Technological Economics Special Committee for China Material Circulation Society ， a member of the 1 st Expert Committee of the China Federation of MF/Logistics and Purchasing ， and an advisor of the China MF/Logistics Society.

Over last forty years, Professor Xu has had more than three hundred academic and practical achievements in three new fields of Comprehensive Energy Engineering, Technological Economics, and Comprehensive Material Flow Engineering. He has more than fifty research achievements that have been widely recognized and awarded by the National Science Conference, Chinese Academy of Science, Chinese Academy of Social Science, State Committee of Planning PRC, and City of Beijing . He was honored eight times with Awards of Science and Technology Progress (one 1 st Place Award by the Province/Ministry and one 3 rd Place Award By the State ， four 2 nd place awards and two 3 rd place awards by province/ministry). His main masterpieces include Comprehensive Energy Engineering (1 st , 2 nd , and 3 rd Editions) and Technological Economics (1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd , and 4 th Editions). Professor Xu is the first ever advisor of graduate students for Master's Degree and Doctoral Degree in these two fields. Eight doctoral degree students and twenty six master's degree students have graduated under his guidance. In the past two years, Professor Xu took his initiative to work on the field of Comprehensive Material Flow Engineering with his doctoral degree graduate student candidates.

Mr. Xu was honored as a “Model Worker” by Chinese Academy of Science in 1977. He was also awarded with the Government Special Allowances by the State Council PRC in 1991.

In 2001, Professor Xu was elected as member of Chinese Academy of Engineering .

William McCarthy is a Professor of Accounting & Information Systems and the KPMG Faculty Fellow at Michigan State University. He received his A.B. in economics from Boston College in 1968 and his Ph.D. in accounting and computer science from the University of Massachusetts in 1978, after which he joined the MSU faculty. He has won multiple teaching awards at the department, college, and national level. Along with Professor Severin Grabski, he has been responsible for constructing and maintaining one of the oldest and most technologically-advanced masters' curricula in the world for accounting information systems, a graduate program that has a long and continuously-successful placement record with the consulting and advanced technology groups of the large public accounting firms. He has also supervised a number of award-winning Ph.D. dissertations, and many of his doctoral students have become thought leaders in accounting systems education.

Professor McCarthy's research interests center around the application of computer science and ontological concepts to the construction of accounting and enterprise systems. His 1982 paper on REA accounting systems was awarded the first Seminal Contribution to the Accounting Information Systems Literature Award in 1996. He has been a lead contributor to e-commerce and XML interoperability standardization efforts within the International Standards Organization (ISO) and within the United Nations (UN/CEFACT). While with Andersen Consulting (Accenture) in 1986-87, he was part of the team that built and analyzed the first uses of embedded semantics within the SEC's EDGAR system. Professor McCarthy has been the chairman of both the AI/ET and the Information Systems sections of the American Accounting Association, and he has been an AAA vice-president as well. During 1989-92, he was the editor of the Journal of Information Systems, and he is presently an editor for The Accounting Review. In 2000, he was presented with the highest recognition given to professors at Michigan State University: the MSU Distinguished Faculty Award.

Prof. Xiaohong Guan received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Control Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and his PhD degree in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1993. He was a senior consulting engineer with Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, USA from 1993 to 1995. He visited the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University from Jan. 1999 to Feb. 2000. His research interests include optimization based production scheduling; bidding strategies, game theoretic analysis, simulation and forecasting of electric power markets; computer network security, sensor networks. Prof. Guan published more than 100 refereed book chapters and journal papers in the above areas and received many prestigious academic and professional awards including the Li Heritage Prize for Excellence in Creative Activities, Li Foundation, San Francisco, USA, 1996, and the Second Prize of National Natural Science Award of China, 2005. He served general chair, program co-chair, session chairs and program committees of many international conferences, and an Associate Editor of Automatic. Prof. Guan is a Fellow of IEEE.

Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems, Tsinghua University
The Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems (CFINS) of Tsinghua Univesity is to provide a physical and intellectual environment for the intelligent analysis, design, and operation of complex and networked systems such as computer and communication networks, power systems, and supply chains by making innovative use of analytical methods and information technology. With its research team consisting of internationally renowned visiting members from US and Hong Kong and the resident members from Tsinghua University, CFINS provides outstanding opportunities for interdisciplinary research and education that are responsive to the changing needs of the society. The collective vision of its members and the emphasis on addressing emerging and critical issues through advanced theoretical methods will make Tsinghua University, in particular its School of Information Science & Technology, a renowned center of gravity on intelligent and networked systems.

State Key Lab for Manufacturing Systems, Xian Jiaotong University
The State Key Lab for Manufacturing Systems (SKLMS) is an inter-disciplinary research institution with its members mainly from three disciplines: mechanical engineering, systems engineering and management engineering. The Lab makes great efforts to make use of its advanced facility and equipment to carry out frontier research on advanced manufacturing systems and enterprise information systems, to educate researchers special expertise and to train industrial practitioners in China. The major research focuses of the Lab including theories and technologies of product design and manufacturing; information science and technology for product design and manufacturing including enterprise information systems; manufacturing systems engineering; and management and decisions in manufacturing. The Lab has been engaged in many international research programs such as China-Europe Networks in Integrated Manufacturing and has collaboration with many world-renowned research institutions including Harvard University, University of Michigan, University of Alberta, Oxford University, Aache University of Technology, Edinhoven University of Technology, etc.

Yushun Fan is the professor of the Department of Automation, Vice Director of System Integration Institute, and Director of the Networking Manufacturing Laboratory in Tsinghua University. He is also guest Professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Southwest Jiaotong University and Shenyang Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the editor committee for the journals of Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems, Aeronautical Manufacturing, Information and Control, China Manufacturing Information Engineering. He is also a member of the IFAC Advanced Manufacturing Technology Committee and vice director of China Standardization Committee for Industrial Automation System and Integration, vice director of Manufacturing Technology Committee of China Automation Association.

He served on the Program Committees of the 1992 International Symposium on CIM, Beijing, China, 1997 IEEE International Conference on Factory Automation & Emerging Technology, 2002 International Workshop on Emergent Technologies in Engineering Cooperative Information Systems, 2003 and 2004 IEEE International Conference on SMC, The 11th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering 2004 IEEE International Conference on E-Commerce Technology for Dynamic E-Business. He authored nine books in enterprise modeling, workflow technology, intelligent agent, object oriented complex system analysis, and computer integrated manufacturing, respectively, and published more than 280 research papers in journals and conferences. His research interest includes enterprise modeling methods and optimization analysis, business process reengineering, workflow management, system integration and integrated platform, object-oriented technologies and flexible software systems.

Professor Kjell Samuelson is an international Sci-Tech advisor to industries and corporations on large-scale management, organizational redesign, and investments for functional development of new infrastructures. He launched the first graduate education and doctoral program in Informatics & Systems Science including Cybernetics and Networks, with an endowed chair as distinguished professor jointly at Stockholm University & Royal Institute of Technology, since four decades. He holds dual Doctors degrees, and conducts R & D globally on Total Systems, TeleCom, Satellites, Systems Architecture, Enterprise Planning and Management Structures. Dr. Samuelson was invited professor of Information Science, Computers, Systems Engineering, Safety & Security, and General Resource Management at a dozen North American Universities. He is past-president of the International Systems Science Society, and has fulfilled chair functions of professional consortia and associations such as SGSR, IFIP, ASIS, IEEE, FISCIT, ITCA, ASC, INSIST. For several years he worked as high-level consultant to UNESCO, OECD, UNITAR, ASEAN, UNIDO etc. on regional development. He is a pioneer of Systems Science & Cybernetics, Communications & Informatics Technology and Global Networks. Further presentation of Professor Samuelson is made in the video series "Founders of Systems Science", displaying his own research, as well as conduct of scholarly dialogs with other scientists.

Prof. G. A. Swanson received a MACT from the University of Tennessee – Knoxville in 1971 and a Ph. D. from Georgia State University in Atlanta in 1982 in the fields of Accounting, Economics, and Quantitative Methods. His Ph. D. dissertation developed a general theory of accounting from James Greer Miller’s general living systems theory. While varied, his main research interest has followed from that study. His works include distinguishing measurement and interpretation in accounting numbers with Miller (1989), the development of a systems view of internal audit theory with Marsh (the pioneering head of internal audit at Alcoa) (1991), a general linguistic-mathematical theory of management with Heikki Heiskanen (consultant for the City of Helsinki) (1992), the development of macro accounting theory (1993) among the more than 100 scholarly publications. Miller developed a scientific theory about the material structures and processes of living systems. Prof. Swanson has extended that theory, particularly in the area of money viewed as information flow (communication) and the need for public disclosure of measurements of economic processes.

Dr. Swanson is Professor of Accounting at Tennessee Tech University where he has served as chair of the Accounting Department among a myriad of other academic duties. He is a Tennessee CPA, ret., and has served the Tennessee society in various capacities including council member. He is the founder and first president of the Tennessee Society of Accounting Educators. His involvement with systems science covers three decades. He is the 1997 President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS). He edited the Living Systems Theory Column of Behavioral Science 1992-1996, was on the General Systems Yearbook editorial board 1990-1997, and has served since 1997 on the editorial board of Systems Research and Behavioral Science. He currently also serves on the international review board of the Journal for Information Systems and Systems Approach and on the academic committee of the International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics. Prof. Swanson is included in the video series Founders of Systems Science produced by Miller.