Curve-based monotonicity: a generalization of directional monotonicity

In this work we propose a generalization of the notion of directional monotonicity. Instead of considering increasingness or decreasingness along rays, we allow more general paths defined by curves in the n-dimensional space. These considerations lead us to the notion of α-monotonicity, where α is the corresponding curve. We study several theoretical properties of α-monotonicity and relate it to other notions of monotonicity, such as weak monotonicity and directional monotonicity.