Stability and boundedness of solutions of a kind of third-order delay differential equations (Q619669)

Consider the third order nonlinear delay differential equation \[ \begin{multlined} x'''(t) + h(x'(t))x''(t) + g(x'(t - r(t))) + f(x(t - r(t))) \\ =p(t,x(t),x'(t),x(t - r(t)),x'(t - r(t)),x''(t)),\end{multlined} \tag{1} \] where \(0 \leq r(t) \leq \gamma \), \(\gamma \) is some positive constant which will be determined later; \(t \in \mathbb R^+:= [0,\infty)\). It is assumed that the functions \(r, h, g,f\) and \(p\) are continuous and that the derivatives \(r'(t)\), \(f'(x)\) and \({g}'(y)\) exist and are continuous; \(r'(t) \leq \beta \), \(0 < \beta < 1.\) By defining a Lyapunov functional, the authors investigate the stability and boundedness of solutions of (1). An example is given to illustrate the theoretical analysis.