OSCILLATION OF HIGHER-ORDER NEUTRAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE COEFFICIENTS AND MIXED ARGUMENTS

In this paper, we study the oscillation problem of the following higher-order neutral differential equation with positive and negative coefficients and mixed arguments $$z^{(n)}(t)+q_1(t)|x(t-{\sigma}_1)|^{\alpha-1}x(t-{\sigma}_1)+q_2(t)|x(t-{\sigma}_2)|^{\beta-1}x(t-{\sigma}_2)=e(t)$$, where $t{\geq}t_0$, $z(t)=x(t)-p(t)x(t-{\tau})$ with $p(t)$ > 0, ${\beta}>1>{\alpha}>0$, ${\tau}$, ${\sigma}_1$ and ${\sigma}_2$ are real numbers. Without imposing any restriction on ${\tau}$, we establish several oscillation criteria for the above equation in two cases: (i) $q_1(t){\leq}0$, $q_2(t)>0$, ${\sigma}_1{\geq}0$ and ${\sigma}_2{\leq}{\tau}$; (ii) $q_1(t){\geq}0$, $q_2(t)<0$, ${\sigma}_1{\geq}{\tau}$ and ${\sigma}_2{\leq}0$. As an interesting application, our results can also be applied to the following higher-order differential equation with positive and negative coefficients and mixed arguments $$x^{(n)}(t)+q_1(t)|x(t-{\sigma}_1)|^{\alpha-1}x(t-{\sigma}_1)+q_2(t)|x(t-{\sigma}_2)|^{\beta-1}x(t-{\sigma}_2)=e(t)$$. Two numerical examples are also given to illustrate the main results.