An elementary method in the study of nonnegative curvature

A standard technique in classical analysis for the study of eontinous sub-solutions of the Dirichlet problem for second order operators may be illustrated as follows. Suppose it is to be shown that a continuous real function ](x) is convex (respectively, striely convex) at x0; then it suffices to produce a C ~ function g(x) such that g(x)<<.](x) near x 0 and g(Xo) =/(x0), and such that 9"(xo) >/0 (respectively g"(xo) >1 some fixed positive constant).