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Hysteresis is a strongly nonlinear phenomenon which occur in many
industrial, physical and economic systems. The wording `strongly
nonlinear' means that linearisation does not encapsulate the
observed phenomena.
The word hysteresis is of the Greek origin and means
etymologically `coming behind'. It was introduced into scientific
vocabulary about 120 years ago by the Scottish physicist, Alfred
Ewing, as follows. ``When there are two quantities  and
 , such that cyclic variations of cause cyclic variation of
, then if the changes of lag behind those of , we may
say that there is hysteresis in the relation of and ''
[7]. Further interesting historical details are presented in
[4].
Nowadays "hysteresis" is one of the most `multi-meaning' terms
(like, for example, `entropy'). For example, it is widely used in
mechanics (plastic hysteresis) [12], physics
(ferromagnetic hysteresis) [13] phase transitions
[3], hydrology (soil-moisture hysteresis) [15], and
economics (shock analysis) [5].
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