Editorial: Overview and Some New Directions

The fractional derivative holds historical dependence or memory effects. But it also brings error accumulation of the numerical solutions as well as the theoretical analysis since many properties from the integer order case cannot hold. The fractional difference is discrete counterpart of the fractional derivative. The memory kernel is defined by applying the discrete functions on time scale and avoids the errors from the numerical discretization. It is particularly suitable for fractional modeling with computer implementations. Many applications of fractional dynamics to neural networks, signal processing, time series and big data become possible now. This issue of work presents the latest progress in the neighborhood related to fractional calculus. © 2021 The Author(s).