On the behavior of some second order nonlinear differential equations (Q1411549)

The nonlinear differential equation \[ y''+p(t)y+q(t)f(y)=0 \eqno(1) \] is studied, where \(p\) and \(q\) are continuous functions defined on the interval of interest. The author establishes various sufficient conditions on the coefficients \(p\) and \(q\) which guarantees various qualitative properties of the solution, such as positivity, number of zeros, boundedness and monotonicity. The proofs of most results are based on the comparison of equation (1) with a convenient linear equation or inequality and the assumptions usually contain a sign restriction on the functions \(p\), \(q\) and/or \(f\).