22. (Total Score: 16 points) Subproblem 1: 3 points, Subproblem 2: 5 points, Subproblem 3: 8 points.
If real numbers $x , y , m$ satisfy $| x - m | < | y - m |$ , then $x$ is said to be closer to $m$ than $y$ is.
(1) If $x ^ { 2 } - 1$ is closer to 3 than to 0, find the range of $x$;
(2) For any two distinct positive numbers $a , b$ , prove that $a ^ { 2 } b + a b ^ { 2 }$ is closer to $2 a b \sqrt { a b }$ than $a ^ { 3 } + b ^ { 3 }$ is;
(3) Given that the domain of function $f ( x )$ is $D = \{ x \mid x \neq k \pi , k \in \mathbf { Z } , x \in \mathbf { R } \}$ . For any $x \in D$ , $f ( x )$ equals whichever of $1 + \sin x$ and $1 - \sin x$ is closer to 0. Write the analytical expression for $f ( x )$ and indicate its parity, minimum positive period, minimum value, and monotonicity (proofs of conclusions are not required).