Generalized subdifferentials of the sign change counting function (Q276504)

By introducing the sign change counting function (to count the number of transitions between contiguous locations) as a natural extension of the sign counting function (on binary values), the authors consider a generalized subdifferential for this sign change counting function, which allows them to prove global optimality at some point, for the \(4\)-dimensional first nontrivial example. It is noticed that such a generalized subdifferential is suitable whereas the classical subdifferentials are intractable.