Oscillation theorems for certain functional differential equations (Q1331007)

Some new criteria for the oscillation of functional differential equations with a middle term of the form \(x^{(n)}(t)= p(t) x^{(n- 1)}(t+ h)+ H(t,x(g(t)))\) are presented. Here \(g,p: [t_ 0,\infty)\to \mathbb{R}= (-\infty,\infty)\), \(H: [t_ 0,\infty)\times \mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}\) are continuous, \(p(t)\geq 0\) and nonincreasing for \(t\geq t_ 0\geq 0\), \(g(t)\to \infty\) as \(t\to\infty\), \(h\) is a positive constant, \(xH(t,x)> 0\) for \(x\neq 0\) and \(t\geq t_ 0\), and \(H\) is increasing in the second variable \(x\). To illustrate his results the author considers the equation \(x^{(n)}(t)- px^{(n-1)}(t+ h)= q(| x(t- g)|^ c)\text{sgn }x(t- g)\), where \(c>0\), \(t\geq 0\), \(h\), \(p\), \(q\) are positive constants and \(g\) is any real number.