Professor Lotfi A. Zadeh, Father of Fuzzy Logic, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Systems
We are deeply saddened to share the sad news that Professor Lotfi A. Zadeh passed away on Sept. 6, 2017 at the age of 97.
Prof. Zadeh has been Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Systems as well as Honorary Editor in several WSEAS Books
His vision has guided us to build the Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing Community and related research in the last 16 years.
Prof. Zadeh was a giant scientist of the world.
His seminal work in logic, fuzzy mathematics, and soft computing, etc., have and will influence many generations of researchers and students. We will remember his pioneer contributions to knowledge forever.
He was best known for proposing the fuzzy mathematics consisting of those fuzzy-related concepts:
fuzzy sets, fuzzy logic, fuzzy algorithms, fuzzy semantics, fuzzy languages, fuzzy control, fuzzy systems, fuzzy probabilities, fuzzy events, and fuzzy information.
Rest in peace, dear Professor Zadeh
Prof. L. Zadeh with the WSEAS Staff in 2008
(from left: Mrs. Eftychia Gourgoura, Dr. John Sakellaris, Mrs. Dina Andrikou, Dr. Olga Serifi)
Prof. Michio Sugeno, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control and Plenary Speaker in the 1st WSEAS International Conference on Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Systems (FSFS '01), Puerto De La Cruz, Canary Islands, Spain, February 11-15, 2001
Prof. Michio Sugeno (Professor Emeritus, Tokyo Institute of Technology), 83, passed away on Wednesday, 9 August 2023, after a short battle with a brain tumor. Dr. Michio Sugeno, known to all of you, has left many milestones in the field of fuzzy theory and applications that I do not need to mention. His profound contributions, ranging from fuzzy measure/Sugeno integral to fuzzy control and computing with words, have had a lasting influence on generations of researchers. Prof. Michio Sugeno was Associate Editor in our Journal "WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control" for more than 10 years. He had been also Plenary Speaker in our 1st WSEAS International Conference on Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Systems (FSFS '01), Puerto De La Cruz, Canary Islands, Spain, February 11-13, 2001. His audience as Plenary Speaker in Puerto De La Cruz, Spain in February of 2001 was about 300 Scholars.
Prof. Michio Sugeno received the B.Sc. degree from the Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1962. He was with the company for three years and then with the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, as a Research Associate, an Associate Professor, and a Professor from 1965 to 2000. After retiring from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, he was a Laboratory Head with the Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, from 2000 to 2005 and then as a Distinguished Visiting Professor with the Doshisha University from 2005 to 2010. Finally, he was an Emeritus Researcher with the European Centre for Soft Computing, Spain, from 2010 to 2015.
Prof. Dr. Michio Sugeno was the President of the Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Systems from 1991 to 1993, and also the President of the International Fuzzy Systems Association from 1997 to 1999. He is the first recipient of the IEEE CIS Pioneer Award in Fuzzy Systems with Zadeh in 2000. He was the recipient of the 2010 IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award. He was also the recipient of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 2017 Lotfi A. Zadeh Pioneer Award. Thus, he achieved many theoretical and technical accomplishments and led the fuzzy community as a distinguished pioneer through his excellent studies. As one of his former Ph.D. students, I was fortunate to learn about his belief and passion for research through his thought-provoking advice. His contribution and leadership to the fuzzy community have been invaluable and we will miss our great leader very much.
Prof. Anastassios (Tas) Venetsanopoulos, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Signal processing
Prof. Anastassios (Tas) Venetsanopoulos, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Signal processing and one of the major professors that supported the WSEAS during its first steps by reviewing papers, approving special sessions and special issues. A prominent personality in the area of Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing, Prof. Anastasios (Tas) Venetsanopoulos passed away on November 17, 2014. Anastassios Venetsanopoulos' Biography in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasios_Venetsanopoulos
Prof. Caro Lucas, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Circuits and Systems
Prof. Caro Lucas, WSEAS member, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Circuits and Systems with more than 10 papers in WSEAS http://www.ipm.ac.ir/personalinfo.jsp?PeopleCode=IP0000052) passed away on July 8, 2010. Caros Lucas Biography in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro_Lucas
In the Photo, Prof. Caro Lucas with Prof. Shahram Javadi in a WSEAS Event.
Prof. Ladislav Kohout, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Computers
Prof. Ladislav Kohout (1941-2009), Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Computers, Professor in the Department of Computer Science Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. He used to spend his summers in Malta, homeland of his wife. Prof. Ladislav Kohout had published a great number of papers in WSEAS, with many interesting results. He passed away on November 20, 2009. Ladislav Kohout Publications in WSEAS: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ladislav+kohout+wseas&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
Prof. Constantine Manikopoulos, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Computers
Prof. Constantine Manikopoulos, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Computers and a frequent WSEAS Author passed away in 2007. Constantine Manikopoulos was Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA. Manikopoulos also supported the WSEAS during its first steps, by reviewing papers, approving special sessions and special issues: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=constantine+manikopoulos+wseas+
Prof. Paul Dan Cristea, Associate Editor of WSEAS Transactions on Biology and Biomedicine
Prof. Paul Dan Cristea, an Associate Editor of WSEAS Transactions on Biology and Biomedicine and Professor at the University "Politehnica" of Bucharest, Romania passed away on April of 2013. A pioneer in DNA Analysis and Genomics, and Associate Editor in WSEAS transactions.
Prof. Ioannis Pountourakis, Editor-in-Chief in WSEAS Transactions on Communications
Our former Editor-in-Chief in WSEAS Transactions on Communications, Prof. Pountourakis was born in Vassiliki, Crete, Grece in 1948 and died in October 28, 2012. He was Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science School at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=IE+Pountourakis+WSEAS&btnG=
Prof. Luciano Simoni, Associate Editor in WSEAS Transactions on Acoustics and Music, Plenary Speaker in WSEAS Conferences "Acoustics and Music"
Prof. Luciano Simoni (1932-2010) was Associate Editor in the journal: WSEAS Transactions on Acoustics and Music, Plenary Speaker in the WSEAS Conference "Acoustics and Music: Theory and Applications" many times (Jamaica, Tenerife, Crete, Cavtat, etc...). Luciano Simoni passed away in December 23, 2010 (at the age of 78). Prof. Luciano Simoni was a composer of the classic Music as well as a Professor of Electrical Engineering, in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy As a composer, Luciano Simoni was taught by Lino Liviabella, composition teacher and director of the Bologna Conservatory and by Ottorino Respighi. Prof. Luciano Simoni wrote many articles in the field of Electrical Engineering and simultaneously many Symphonies!
See: https://www.earsense.org/chamber-music/composer/Luciano-Simoni/
See also: http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2006cavtat/papers/526-119.pdf
Prof. Michael Athans, MIT, Keynote Speaker in WSEAS CSCC 1999 passed away
Michael Athans was Professor at MIT, USA and director of the Laboratory for Information and Decisions Systems.
MIT electrical engineering and computer science Professor Emeritus Michael Athans died peacefully on May 26 at his home in Clearwater, Florida, at the age of 83. He served as Keynote Speaker in WSEAS CSCC in 1999.
Prof. George Saridis, Prof. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Plenary Speaker in WSEAS CSCC 1999 and WSEAS MCME 1999 passed away
Prof. George Saridis was a pioneer in learning control, adaptive control, control of nonlinear and stochastic systems, robotics, traffic control systems, and intelligent control, making significant contributions to the advancement and application of engineering and technology. He also made important contributions to the early development of computational intelligence. From 1981-1996 Professor Saridis served as professor in the Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department and director of the Robotics and Automation Laboratories at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 he served as program director for system theory and applications in the Engineering Division of the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. From 1988 until 1992, he was director of the NASA Center for Intelligent Robotic Systems for Space Exploration at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). He was Plenary Speaker in WSEAS CSCC 1999 and WSEAS MCME 1999. He was born 1931 and passed away in 2006
Prof. Mirko Novak, WSEAS Editor and Plenary Speaker in more than 15 conferences, passed away
https://wseas.com/plenaryspeakers.php
https://www.wseas.org/cms.action?id=4356
On March 10th, 2020 an outstanding man, scientist, teacher visionary, creator, friend and founder of Neural Network World, prof. Ing. Mirko Novak, DrSc. departed from our lives.
Prof. Ing. Mirko Novak, DrSc. was born on September 29, 1930 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He graduated from Czech University Technical University, Prague in 1952, where he was an assistant professor in the period 1952–1955. In 1956 he joined the Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague, where he was the head of the Department of System Theory. In 1965 and 1966 he was the visiting professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering of New York University. In 1975 he founded a new Institute of Computer Science of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. He was in the position of the director of this Institute for almost 15 years. He was in collaboration with WSEAS in 1 European Research Project.
Mirko Novak and WSEAS were organizing conferences together in Prague (Czech Republic) for several years starting in March of 2006
One of his emails:
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From: Prof. Dr. Zdenek Votruba
Cc: Prof. Dr. Mirko Novak
Dear colleague,
thank You for your early reply and your interest in the Conference in Prague as well. I am convinced tha the WSEAS conference in Prague was an excellent opportunity for our PhD. students. They prepared their papers with an enthusiasm and effort in very tight terms and I believe their section was excellent in all.
Best regards,
Prof. Zdenek Votruba
Prof. Mirko Novak
Czech University in Prague
Prague
Prof. Metin Demiralp more than 20 times Plenary Lecturer in WSEAS Conferences, Member of International Program Committee of numerous WSEAS Conferences, Reviewer in 3 WSEAS Journals passed away in June 14, 2022
Prof. Metin Demiralp speaks for WSEAS in two Videos of 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HQjN36Jl1M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPFL3SqouA
Prof. Metin Demiralp was born in Türkiye (Turkey) on 4 May 1948. His education from elementary school to university was entirely in Turkey. He got his BS, MS degrees and PhD from the same institution, ˙Istanbul Technical University. He was originally a chemical engineer, however, through theoretical chemistry, applied mathematics, and computational science years he was mostly working on methodology for computational sciences and he is continuing to do so. He has a group (Group for Science and Methods of Computing) in Informatics Institute of ˙Istanbul Technical University (he is the founder of this institute). He collaborated with Prof. Herschel A. Rabitz’s group at Princeton University (NJ, USA) during summer and winter semester breaks during the period 1985-2003 after his 14 month long postdoctoral visit to the same group in 1979-1980. He was also (and still is) in collaboration with a neuroscience group at the Psychology Department in the University of Michigan at Ann Arbour in the last three years (with certain publications in journals and proceedings). Metin Demiralp had more than 200 papers in well known and prestigious scientific journals (including WSEAS), and more than 230 contributions together with various keynote, plenary, and, tutorial talks to the proceedings of various international conferences like WSEAS. He gave many invited talks in various prestigious scientific meetings and academic institutions. He had an excellent scientific reputation in his country and he was one of the principal members of Turkish Academy of Sciences since 1994.
Professor Stavros J.Baloyannis (Emeritus Professor of Neurology at Aristotelian University, Thessaloniki, Greece), Associate Editor of WSEAS Transactions on Biology and Biomedicine (Scopus Indexed) and many times Plenary Speaker in our WSEAS Conferences passed away on November 9, 2023.
Professor Stavros J.Baloyannis was famous for his Research on Blood Brain Barrier in dementias and Demyelinating diseases, Mitochondria in Alzheimer’s disease, Synaptogenesis in vivo and in vitro, Neuronal apoptosis in dementias and demyelinating diseases, dendritic pathology in dementias, Pathology of Golgi apparatus in dementias. Special interests: Neuroethics, Neurolinguistics, Philosophy of Neurosciences, Application of mathematics in Neurosciences, Neurology and the Art. Author of 28 textbooks on Neurology, Neuropathology, Neuropsychology and of 720 peer-reviewed papers. Director of Research Institute for Alzheimer’s disease and ageing.
On May 7, 2023, Professor Emeritus Constantin Udrişte, Associate Editor of the WSEAS Transactions on Mathematics, Plenary Speaker at more than five WSEAS Conferences, and organizer of seven Special Sessions at WSEAS events, passed away.
Until the very end of his life, he remained exceptionally capable and full of energy. Professor Constantin Udrişte was born on January 22, 1940, in Turceni, Gorj County, Romania. In 1963, he earned his degree from Timişoara University, and in 1971 he successfully defended his PhD thesis at the University of Cluj-Napoca. At the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, he progressed through all academic ranks, attaining the title of full professor in 1990. Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Udrişte received numerous prestigious awards. These included the Ștefan Hepites Award from the Romanian Ministry of Education and Instruction in 2010, the Dragomir Hurmuzescu Award from the Romanian Academy in 1985, the COPIRO Prize for Exact Sciences, and the Premio Anassilaos International 2002 - Arte Cultura Scienze. He was the founder of the Balkan Society of Geometers, serving as its last president from 2005 and as editor-in-chief of its four journals. In addition, he was an active member of the American Mathematical Society, the Tensor Society, and the Society of Mathematical Sciences in Romania and WSEAS. Professor Udrişte conducted extensive research in several areas, including Differential Geometry, Optimization on Riemannian Manifolds, Magnetic Dynamical Systems, and Geometric Dynamics. Over his career, he published more than 300 scientific works, many appearing in highly regarded journals, including numerous contributions to WSEAS journals. His lifelong dedication to mathematics and research left an indelible mark on the WSEAS scientific community.
Professor Georges J. Kipouros, Dean of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, two times Plenary Speaker in WSEAS Conferences as well as Frequent Reviewer in WSEAS journals and conferences passed away on July 24, 2025, at the age of 77.
Professor Georges J. Kipouros served the academia in numerous leadership roles. As Head of the Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering between 1994 and 2000, he expanded the department's co-op program and created stronger ties with industry. Under his tenure as Assistant Dean of the Faculty of Engineering between 2000 to 2005, Georges headed the creation of administrative structures for space analysis and the development of Sexton campus. He also served as Vice-Chair of the Senate from 1997 to 2000 and as Director of the Minerals Engineering Centre from 2000 to 2013. He sat on countless faculty and university committees, including the TUNS/Dalhousie Amalgamation Coordinating Committee. Since 2013, Georges was the Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Prof. Emmanuel Protonotarios, Associate Editor of WSEAS Transactions on Communications passed away.
Professor Emmanuel Protonotarios, Associate Editor in our journal WSEAS Transactions on Communications from 2004 to 2007 and Keynote Speaker in WSEAS CSCC Conference in 2004 as well as in WSEAS TELEINFO 2007 passed away in December 26, 2025. Professor Protonotarios was a prominent Greek academic associated with WSEAS primarily through his participation in our early conferences and his mentorship of researchers who publish within the WSEAS journals. He was an Emeritus Professor at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), specifically within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Many of his students and collaborators cite his guidance in papers published through WSEAS.
Prof. Dorin Ghisa, Frequent Plenary Speaker in our conferences and Associate Editor of WSEAS Transactions on Mathematics, has passed away.
Prof. Dorin Ghisa, a frequent Plenary Speaker at WSEAS conferences, a dedicated reviewer for WSEAS journals, and an Associate Editor of WSEAS Transactions on Mathematics, passed away on April 13, 2026. The WSEAS Administration expresses its deep sorrow at the loss of a distinguished scholar and valued member of our academic community. Dorin Ghisa was born in 1940 in Romania. He graduated from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca in 1963 with a degree in Mathematics. In 1976, he defended his Ph.D. thesis, “Quasi-Conformal Mappings on Riemann Surfaces,” at the University of Bucharest. During his long and distinguished academic career, he was affiliated with the West University of Timișoara (Romania), the University of Science and Technology of Algiers, and, in Canada, with Université de Montréal, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Université de Moncton, and York University in Toronto. His primary research interests were in Complex Analysis, although he also published significant work in Topology, Partial Differential Equations, Potential Theory, and Probability Theory. His research was presented at more than 60 international conferences and congresses. Dorin Ghisa was an Emeritus Member of the American Mathematical Society. Professor Ghisa authored numerous research papers, including important studies related to the generalized Riemann hypothesis and the geometric properties of analytic functions, contributing to ongoing discussions in modern mathematical analysis. Overall, he was recognized as an eminent scholar with an extensive and distinguished international academic career in pure and applied mathematics.
Prof. Dimitri Bertsekas, Editor in many WSEAS Conferences and Journals and 4 times Plenary Speaker in WSEAS Conferences, passed away on June 3, 2026.
Prof. Dimitri Bertsekas, Editor in many WSEAS Conferences and Journals and 4 times Plenary Speaker in WSEAS Conferences, passed away on June 3, 2026, at the age of 83, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy as a pioneer in mathematical optimization, dynamic programming, optimal control, and reinforcement learning. Over his long career, he helped shape modern engineering and data science, serving as a long-time faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before later joining Arizona State University (ASU). His monumental academic impact stems largely from his ability to bridge the gap between traditional control theory and artificial intelligence. Notably, his seminal 1996 book Neuro-Dynamic Programming, co-authored with John N. Tsitsiklis, laid the foundational theoretical framework for modern reinforcement learning and AI systems.Beyond his research, Bertsekas was widely celebrated for his clarity as an educator and author. He wrote numerous definitive, widely adopted textbooks across probability, nonlinear programming, and parallel computing, which he published through his own self-established publishing house, Athena Scientific. His profound contributions to the field earned him widespread recognition, leading to his election to the US National Academy of Engineering. He also received some of the highest honors in his discipline, including the INFORMS Prize for Research Excellence in 1997, the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award in 2014, the George B. Dantzig Prize in 2015, and the John von Neumann Theory Prize in 2018. Following his passing, the WSEAS academic community heavily mourned his loss, remembering him not only for his brilliant and elegant mathematical algorithms but also as an exceptionally generous, encouraging, and supportive mentor to generations of students and young faculty members worldwide.
Prof. Dr Zoran Bojkovic, WSEAS Fellow, Numerous times Plenary Speaker in WSEAS Conferences and Editor-in-Chief of the WSEAS Transactions on Communications, Life Senior Member IEEE, Full Professor of electrical engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia, and Full Member of Engineering Academy of Serbia passed away in August 23, 2026.
Prof. Dr Zoran Bojkovic, WSEAS Fellow, Numerous times Plenary Speaker in WSEAS Conferences and Editor-in-Chief of the WSEAS Transactions on Communications, Life Senior Member IEEE, Full Professor of electrical engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia, and Full Member of Engineering Academy of Serbia passed away in August 23, 2026. Zoran Bojkovic was a permanent visiting professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, TX, USA; EE Department, Multimedia Systems Lab. He was a visiting researcher at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, Information System Lab., hosted by Prof. Robert M. Gray. His areas of expertise were digital multimedia signal processing (audio, image, video), data compression by various techniques, wire/wireless multimedia communications and computers networks. He was a visiting professor worldwide (universities and institutes in 25 countries). He had taught a number of courses, seminars, tutorials, keynote/plenary/ invited lectures and speeches at international conferences. Also, he was the co-author of 7 international books, published by WSEAS, Prentice -Hall, Wiley, CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group......and translated in China, Singapore, India, Canada. He was the co-editor in 77 international books, conference proceedings and had published more than 450 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences proceedings. He participated in more than 110 scientific research and industrial projects all over the world and has been consultant to industry, research institutes and academia. The European Commission Service identify his profile a good match for specific expertise requirements. His activities included serving as Editor-in- Chief for 5 International Journals, Associate Editor for 4, as well as Guest Editor for the Special Issue in one International Journal.
