Symmetric variation (Q1189104)

The author deals with functions \(f: R\to R\) (\(R\) --- the real line). Let \(E\subset R\) and let \(\delta\) be a positive function on \(E\). Then \[ S_ \delta(f,E)=\sup\sum^ n_{i=1}| f(x_ i+h_ i)-f(x_ i-h_ i)|, \] where the supremum is with regard to all sequences \(\{[x_ i- h_ i, x_ i+h_ i]\}\) of nonoverlapping intervals with centers \(x_ i\in E\) and with \(h_ i<\delta(x_ i)\). The symmetric variation of \(f\) on \(E\) is defined by \(VS_ f(E)=\inf S_ \delta(f,E)\), where the infimum is taken over all positive functions \(\delta\) on \(E\). \(VS_ f\) is an outer measure on the real line. The paper presents properties of functions having zero, finite or \(\sigma\)-finite symmetric variation on an arbitrary set. It is shown, e.g., that if \(VS_ f\) is \(\sigma\)-finite on an interval \((a,b)\), then there is a dense set of subintervals of \((a,b)\) on each of which \(f\) has bounded variation.