Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without encouragement, dedicated help and constructive comments from a large number of people. We would like to thank SupCon Software Co Ltd., Hangzhou, P.R. China, for providing access to the data sets used in Chapters 7 and 8. We particularly thank Dr. Yong Gu and Mr. Yanhui Zhang for technical advice regarding these data sets and for interpreting associated results. Our thanks also extend to Dr. Jian Chu, Dr. Hongye Su and Dr. Shuqing Wang for facilitating numerous research visits by Dr. Uwe Kruger to the Institute of Cyber Systems and Control, Zhejiang University, P.R. China, from 2006 onwards.

Dr. Xie is grateful for financial support from the National Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 60904039, 61134007) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. Furthmore, Dr. Kruger would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Ministry Of Education Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline (111 Project, Grant No. B07031).

With regards to the recorded data from the chemical reaction process in Chapter 4, Dr. Uwe Kruger is grateful to Dr. Keith Smith for advice on how to interpret the process data, and ICI Polymer Chemicals for providing access to the operating data used and for the permission to present associated results in Kruger et al (2001). Dr. Kruger would also like to thank Mr. Steve Robinson for providing helpful advice in analyzing and interpreting the process data of the distillation process and is grateful to BP Amoco Scotland for providing access to the operating data used in Chapter 5 and for the permission to present associated results in Wang et al (2003). We wish to acknowledge the contribution of Dr. Randall C. McFarlane, who introduced the mechanistic simulator of the fluid catalytic cracking unit and for offering helpful advice regarding the generation of realistic operating scenarios for the application study in Chapter 7.

Dr. Uwe Kruger is indebted to Dr. David J. Sandoz for the mentoring and the care as adviser for his doctorate degree at the University of Manchester and for introducing the area of industrial process control and monitoring during his attachment to the Control Technology Center Ltd. and Predictive Control Ltd. between 1996 and 2000. Dr. Sandoz's leadership and vision has always been a source of inspiration and a reference for technology transfer, improving existing methods and for generating conceptual ideas. In addition, Dr. Kruger would like to acknowledge the mentoring as well as the helpful and constructive advice by Dr. George W. Irwin during his employment at Queen's University Belfast between 2001 and 2007. Dr. Irwin's leadership of the Intelligent Systems and Control Group contributed in large parts to the research work in Chapter 7. During that time, Dr. Kruger's research activities on process monitoring, process safety and quality assurance were financially supported by DuPont (UK) Ltd., Invest Northern Ireland, the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council, the European Social Fund, the Department of Education and Learning, the Center for the Theory and Application of Catalysis and the Virtual Engineering Center. From 2007 to 2012, Dr. Kruger acknowledges financial support from The Petroleum Institute to continue the development of industrially relevant techniques for process monitoring, process safety and product quality assurance. Dr. Kruger would particularly like to acknowledge the helpful assistance by Dr. Cornelis Peters and Dr. Ali Almansoori of the Chemical Engineering Program and the advice by Dr. Jaap Geluk of the Department of Mathematics regarding the central limit theorem.

We are also in debt to many graduate students, colleagues and friends for their encouragement, helpful suggestions and invaluable contributions in generating the research work in this book. As it is difficult to provide an inclusive list of all contributors to our work, we would like to mention in particular the academic colleagues Dr. Xun Wang, Dr. Qian Chen, Dr. Tim Littler, Dr. Barry Lennox, Dr. Günter Wozny, Dr. Sebstian Engell, Dr. Yiqi Zhou, Dr. Enrique Luis Lima, Dr. José Carlos Pinto and Dr. Zhihuan Song. The following former postdoctoral researchers and graduate students strongly contributed to the work in this book: Dr. Zhiqiang Ge, Dr. David Antory, Dr. Dirk Lieftucht, Dr. Yan Zhou, Dr. Xueqin Liu, Dr. Thiago Feital and Dr. Udo Schubert. The authors also want to acknowledge the contribution by the graduate students Mr. Omar AlJaberi, Ms. Zhe Li and Mr. Gui Chen. Dr. Uwe Kruger finally wishes to thank Mr. Marcel Meronk for his support in relation to the application studies in Chapters 4 and 5 and for his friendship and encouragement.

Finally, the authors would like to thank the Wiley team and, in particular, Mr. Richard Davies, Miss. Heather Kay and Mrs. Susan Barclay for their patience, invaluable support and encouragement for drafting and completing this book.