Editorial

Stochastic nonlinear differential equations have been widely used to model physical sys-tems that have abrupt variations in their structures. These abrupt variations may re-sult from component and interconnection failures or repairs, parameters shifting, sudden environmental disturbances, abrupt variations of the operating point, etc. Stochastic nonlinear differential equations typically consist of both continuous and discrete states, which are, respectively, modelled by nonlinear differential equations and stochastic pro-cesses. Time-varying engineering systems such as electrical networks, economic systems, manufacturing systems, communication systems, and so forth have the characteristics of time-delay. In general, the existence of time delays degrades the control performance and may make the closed-loop stabilization very difficult. Over the past two decades, considerable researches have been done on the analysis and synthesis of time-delay stochastic linear systems (TDSLS). Delay-independent method-ologies for TDSLS which guarantee stability and prescribed performance level have been obtained. Recently, delay-dependent methodologies for TDSLS have been developed to reduce the conservativeness of the delay-independent methodologies. To the best of our knowledge, stability analysis and synthesis for time-delay stochastic nonlinear systems (TDSNS) have not been thoroughly invesigated yet. It was an inspiration to organize a special issue of this journal on