Strictly monotone functions on preimages of open sets leading to Lyapunov functions (Q2392513)

The work deals with monotonicity of real functions of one variable defined on open sets in preimages of prescribed sets. There are two main results, the first one stating that if \(f\) is Darboux and right continuous on an open interval \(I\), strictly decreasing at each \(x \in f^{-1}(D)\) for an arbitrary \(D \subseteq R\), then \(f\) is strictly decreasing on \(f^{-1}(D)\). The second result claims that if \(f\) has a negative derivative on the preimage of an open set \(D\), then it is strictly decreasing on this preimage. Both results hold also for increasing functions. Examples for autonomous ODE and some examples are also presented.