Cai Wen

Professor Cai Wen (蔡文), born 1942 in Chenghai County, Guangdong Province, graduated from Zhongshan University in 1964. He is the chairman of the board of the Extension Engineering Special Committee, the Chinese Artificial Intelligence Association and the president of the Extension Engineering Research Institute. He has also been nominated among the national distinguished experts due to his prominent research work.

Birth of Extentics

From 1976, Prof. Cai set about studying the law, theory and method for dealing with incompatible problems. The paper "Extension set and incompatible problem", published in 1983, marked the birth of the new science of Extenics (originally Matter-element analysis). The first monograph, "Matter-element analysis", published in 1987, was listed among "the cream of famous Chinese academic books". The extension decision method applied to decision science and the transforming bridge method applied to the economic field were proposed afterwards. In the past few years, three other monographs were published: "Matter-element model and its application", "Extension marketing", "Extension engineering method " and the selected papers of "From matter-element analysis to Extenics", edited in chief by Prof. Cai.

The Matter-element Research Institute at Guangdong College of Technology, which been extended to the Research Institute of Extension Engineering, was established in 1986. The Matter-element Institute of China Association for modern designs science was set up in 1987. The research team engaged in Extenics now has been organized at home and abroad for 17 groups of research scholars, began with the title of associate professor, lecturer or with doctor's degree, has been cultivated from 1993. Now eight national extension engineering conferences and three forums about Extenics have been held from 1985. And four national scientific projects associated Extenics are supported by far.

Influence of Extentics

Originally from the Chinese mainland, research into Extenics has been extended to foreign nations, including the United States, Japan, Taiwan and South America Fact|date=February 2007. In the application research field, Prof. Cai initiated application of Extenics' theory and method to study decision and management problems in 1980. A training class of enterprise managers in GDUT's petrochemical department was held in 1986. From the training class, some enterprise management solutions were formulated and a relevant book was published.

In 1998, Prof. Cai and his group applied Extenics to business management, the enterprise forums were conducted and the extension marketing method was proposed.

Extenics has drawn great interest from industry enterprises and has a developing influence throughout the world. Prof. Cai was invited to introduce Extenics in Hong Kong and Taiwan, holding an extension engineering training class there. Many lectures and training classes have been held in many places throughout the country, for example, in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Shenzhen.

Recognition of Extentics

Science Bulletin magazine (1998, vol. 21), published by the Chinese Academy of Sciences writes, "Extenics is one of vigorous sciences. It belongs to not only China but also to the world. It is the pride of Chinese". The survey "Extension theory and its application" (published in Science Bulletin, 1999, No. 7) summarizes the research work of Extenics from the first paper of Extenics.

Due to his contribution to Extenics, Prof. Cai was nominated among the national distinguished experts of China charged by the Chinese State Council, and he was also nominated among the outstanding young and middle-aged experts of Guangdong Province Fact|date=February 2007. Ever since, he has been granted a special government allowance from the Chinese State Council.

External links

* [http://web.gdut.edu.cn/~extenics/i.htm GDUT page on Extenics] , in English