Discrete semipositone higher-order equations (Q1827176)

Consider the discrete boundary-value problem \[ \begin{aligned} \Delta^ny(k-n+1)+ \mu f\bigl(k,y(k) \bigr)&=0,\quad k=n-1,\;n,\dots,T+n-1,\\ \Delta^i y(0)&=0,\quad 0\leq i\leq n-2,\tag{1}\\ \Delta^py(T+n-p)&=0,\quad 1\leq p\leq n-1, \end{aligned} \] where \(\mu>0\), \(p\) is fixed and \(T\in\{ 1,2,\dots,\}\). Let \(C(I_n)\) denote the class of maps continuous on \(I_n=\{0, \dots,T+n\}\). It is important that \(f\in C(I_n)\) may take negative values. Under some assumptions (1) has a solution \(y\in C(I_n)\) such that \(y(k)>0\) for \(k\in (1_{n-1})\).