As a branch of mathematics, fractional calculus is a
generalization of differentiation and integration to arbitrary
(non-integer) orders. The concept of fractional-order calculus can be
traced to the early work of Leibniz and L'Hospital in 1695, but it has
attracted lots of attention from physicians and engineers in recent
years. Many systems in in- terdisciplinary fields can be accurately
modelled by fractional-order differential equations, such as
viscoelastic systems, dielectric polariza- tion, quantitative finance,
nonlinear oscillation of earthquakes, robotic manipulating systems,
muscular blood vessel model, hydrologic models and so on. In this talk,
I will discuss about Riemann-Liouville differential and integral
operators and Caputo fractional derivative. Then, I will talk about
fractional-order dynamical systems defined by differential operators of
Caputo type.
