Nabil Derbel was born in Sfax (Tunisia) in April 1962. He received his engineering diploma from the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Sfax in 1986, the Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies in automatic control from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse in 1986, the Doctorat d'Université degree from the Laboratoire d'Automatique et d'Analyse des Systèmes de Toulouse in 1989, and the Doctorat d'Etat degree from the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Tunis. He joined the Tunisian University in 1989, where he held different positions involved in research and education. Currently, he is Full Professor (first class) of automatic control at the Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Sfax. His current interests include: optimal control, complex systems, robotic systems, power systems. Quanmin Zhu is Professor in control systems at the School of Engineering, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He obtained his M.Sc.

in Harbin Institute of Technology, China, in 1983, and Ph.D. in Faculty of Engineering, University of Warwick, UK, in 1989, and worked as Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK, between 1989 and 2994. His main research interest is in nonlinear system modeling, identification and control. He has published over 300 papers on these topics, edited various books with Springer, Elsevier and the other publishers and provided consultancy to various industries. Currently, Professor Zhu is acting as Editor of Elsevier book series of emerging methodologies and applications in modelling, identification and control.