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The renewal function for Weibull distribution m(t) with t = 10 is given as below.
I want to find the value of m(t). I wrote the following r code to compute m(t)
last_term = NULL
gamma_k = NULL
n = 50
for(k in 1:n){
gamma_k[k] = gamma(2*k + 1)/factorial(k)
}
for(j in 1: (n-1)){
prev = gamma_k[n-j]
last_term[j] = gamma(2*j + 1)/factorial(j)*prev
}
final_term = NULL
find_value = function(n){
for(i in 2:n){
final_term[i] = gamma_k[i] - sum(last_term[1:(i-1)])
}
return(final_term)
}
all_k = find_value(n)
af_sum = NULL
m_t = function(t){
for(k in 1:n){
af_sum[k] = (-1)^(k-1) * all_k[k] * t^(2*k)/gamma(2*k + 1)
}
return(sum(na.omit(af_sum)))
}
m_t(20)
The output is m(t) = 2.670408e+93. Does my iteratvie procedure correct? Thanks.
I don't think it will work. First, lets move Γ(2k+1) from denominator of m(t) into Ak. Thus, Ak will behave roughly as 1/k!.
In the nominator of the m(t) terms there is t2k, so roughly speaking you're computing sum with terms
100k/k!
From Stirling formula
k! ~ kk, making terms
(100/k)k
so yes, they will start to decrease and converge to something but after 100th term
Anyway, here is the code, you could try to improve it, but it breaks at k~70
N <- 20
A <- rep(0, N)
# compute A_k/gamma(2k+1) terms
ps <- 0.0 # previous sum
A[1] = 1.0
for(k in 2:N) {
ps <- ps + A[k-1]*gamma(2*(k-1) + 1)/factorial(k-1)
A[k] <- 1.0/factorial(k) - ps/gamma(2*k+1)
}
print(A)
t <- 10.0
t2 <- t*t
r <- 0.0
for(k in 1:N){
r <- r + (-t2)^k*A[k]
}
print(-r)
UPDATE
Ok, I calculated Ak as in your question, got the same answer. I want to estimate terms Ak/Γ(2k+1) from m(t), I believe it will be pretty much dominated by 1/k! term. To do that I made another array k!*Ak/Γ(2k+1), and it should be close to one.
Code
N <- 20
A <- rep(0.0, N)
psum <- function( pA, k ) {
ps <- 0.0
if (k >= 2) {
jmax <- k - 1
for(j in 1:jmax) {
ps <- ps + (gamma(2*j+1)/factorial(j))*pA[k-j]
}
}
ps
}
# compute A_k/gamma(2k+1) terms
A[1] = gamma(3)
for(k in 2:N) {
A[k] <- gamma(2*k+1)/factorial(k) - psum(A, k)
}
print(A)
B <- rep(0.0, N)
for(k in 1:N) {
B[k] <- (A[k]/gamma(2*k+1))*factorial(k)
}
print(B)
shows that
I got the same Ak values as you did.
Bk is indeed very close to 1
It means that term Ak/Γ(2k+1) could be replaced by 1/k! to get quick estimate of what we might get (with replacement)
m(t) ~= - Sum(k=1, k=Infinity) (-1)k (t2)k / k! = 1 - Sum(k=0, k=Infinity) (-t2)k / k!
This is actually well-known sum and it is equal to exp() with negative argument (well, you have to add term for k=0)
m(t) ~= 1 - exp(-t2)
Conclusions
Approximate value is positive. Probably will stay positive after all, Ak/Γ(2k+1) is a bit different from 1/k!.
We're talking about 1 - exp(-100), which is 1-3.72*10-44! And we're trying to compute it precisely summing and subtracting values on the order of 10100 or even higher. Even with MPFR I don't think this is possible.
Another approach is needed
OK, so I ended up going down a pretty different road on this. I have implemented a simple discretization of the integral equation which defines the renewal function:
m(t) = F(t) + integrate (m(t - s)*f(s), s, 0, t)
The integral is approximated with the rectangle rule. Approximating the integral for different values of t gives a system of linear equations. I wrote a function to generate the equations and extract a matrix of coefficients from it. After looking at some examples, I guessed a rule to define the coefficients directly and used that to generate solutions for some examples. In particular I tried shape = 2, t = 10, as in OP's example, with step = 0.1 (so 101 equations).
I found that the result agrees pretty well with an approximate result which I found in a paper (Baxter et al., cited in the code). Since the renewal function is the expected number of events, for large t it is approximately equal to t/mu where mu is the mean time between events; this is a handy way to know if we're anywhere in the neighborhood.
I was working with Maxima (http://maxima.sourceforge.net), which is not efficient for numerical stuff, but which makes it very easy to experiment with different aspects. At this point it would be straightforward to port the final, numerical stuff to another language such as Python.
Thanks to OP for suggesting the problem, and S. Pappadeux for insightful discussions. Here is the plot I got comparing the discretized approximation (red) with the approximation for large t (blue). Trying some examples with different step sizes, I saw that the values tend to increase a little as step size gets smaller, so I think the red line is probably a little low, and the blue line might be more nearly correct.
Here is my Maxima code:
/* discretize weibull renewal function and formulate system of linear equations
* copyright 2020 by Robert Dodier
* I release this work under terms of the GNU General Public License
*
* This is a program for Maxima, a computer algebra system.
* http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
*/
"Definition of the renewal function m(t):" $
renewal_eq: m(t) = F(t) + 'integrate (m(t - s)*f(s), s, 0, t);
"Approximate integral equation with rectangle rule:" $
discretize_renewal (delta_t, k) :=
if equal(k, 0)
then m(0) = F(0)
else m(k*delta_t) = F(k*delta_t)
+ m(k*delta_t)*f(0)*(delta_t / 2)
+ sum (m((k - j)*delta_t)*f(j*delta_t)*delta_t, j, 1, k - 1)
+ m(0)*f(k*delta_t)*(delta_t / 2);
make_eqs (n, delta_t) :=
makelist (discretize_renewal (delta_t, k), k, 0, n);
make_vars (n, delta_t) :=
makelist (m(k*delta_t), k, 0, n);
"Discretized integral equation and variables for n = 4, delta_t = 1/2:" $
make_eqs (4, 1/2);
make_vars (4, 1/2);
make_eqs_vars (n, delta_t) :=
[make_eqs (n, delta_t), make_vars (n, delta_t)];
load (distrib);
subst_pdf_cdf (shape, scale, e) :=
subst ([f = lambda ([x], pdf_weibull (x, shape, scale)), F = lambda ([x], cdf_weibull (x, shape, scale))], e);
matrix_from (eqs, vars) :=
(augcoefmatrix (eqs, vars),
[submatrix (%%, length(%%) + 1), - col (%%, length(%%) + 1)]);
"Subsitute Weibull pdf and cdf for shape = 2 into discretized equation:" $
apply (matrix_from, make_eqs_vars (4, 1/2));
subst_pdf_cdf (2, 1, %);
"Just the right-hand side matrix:" $
rhs_matrix_from (eqs, vars) :=
(map (rhs, eqs),
augcoefmatrix (%%, vars),
[submatrix (%%, length(%%) + 1), col (%%, length(%%) + 1)]);
"Generate the right-hand side matrix, instead of extracting it from equations:" $
generate_rhs_matrix (n, delta_t) :=
[delta_t * genmatrix (lambda ([i, j], if i = 1 and j = 1 then 0
elseif j > i then 0
elseif j = i then f(0)/2
elseif j = 1 then f(delta_t*(i - 1))/2
else f(delta_t*(i - j))), n + 1, n + 1),
transpose (makelist (F(k*delta_t), k, 0, n))];
"Generate numerical right-hand side matrix, skipping over formulas:" $
generate_rhs_matrix_numerical (shape, scale, n, delta_t) :=
block ([f, F, numer: true], local (f, F),
f: lambda ([x], pdf_weibull (x, shape, scale)),
F: lambda ([x], cdf_weibull (x, shape, scale)),
[genmatrix (lambda ([i, j], delta_t * if i = 1 and j = 1 then 0
elseif j > i then 0
elseif j = i then f(0)/2
elseif j = 1 then f(delta_t*(i - 1))/2
else f(delta_t*(i - j))), n + 1, n + 1),
transpose (makelist (F(k*delta_t), k, 0, n))]);
"Solve approximate integral equation (shape = 3, t = 1) via LU decomposition:" $
fpprintprec: 4 $
n: 20 $
t: 1;
[AA, bb]: generate_rhs_matrix_numerical (3, 1, n, t/n);
xx_by_lu: linsolve_by_lu (ident(n + 1) - AA, bb, floatfield);
"Iterative solution of approximate integral equation (shape = 3, t = 1):" $
xx: bb;
for i thru 10 do xx: AA . xx + bb;
xx - (AA.xx + bb);
xx_iterative: xx;
"Should find iterative and LU give same result:" $
xx_diff: xx_iterative - xx_by_lu[1];
sqrt (transpose(xx_diff) . xx_diff);
"Try shape = 2, t = 10:" $
n: 100 $
t: 10 $
[AA, bb]: generate_rhs_matrix_numerical (2, 1, n, t/n);
xx_by_lu: linsolve_by_lu (ident(n + 1) - AA, bb, floatfield);
"Baxter, et al., Eq. 3 (for large values of t) compared to discretization:" $
/* L.A. Baxter, E.M. Scheuer, D.J. McConalogue, W.R. Blischke.
* "On the Tabulation of the Renewal Function,"
* Econometrics, vol. 24, no. 2 (May 1982).
* H(t) is their notation for the renewal function.
*/
H(t) := t/mu + sigma^2/(2*mu^2) - 1/2;
tx_points: makelist ([float (k/n*t), xx_by_lu[1][k, 1]], k, 1, n);
plot2d ([H(u), [discrete, tx_points]], [u, 0, t]), mu = mean_weibull(2, 1), sigma = std_weibull(2, 1);
I'm writing some code in R in order to determine an optimal estimator for ai given any tolerance. So far, I've come up with this:
iter<- function (ai, k, tolerance){
at = ai*(1-ai^2*R[k]^ai*(log(R[k]))^2/(1-R[k]^ai)^2)/
(1 - (ai^2*R[k]^ai*(log(R[k]))^2)/(1-R[k]^ai)^2 + ai*(H(k)
- 1/ai - R[k]^ai*log(R[k])/(1-R[k]^ai)))
while((at-ai) > tolerance) {
ai = at
at = ai*(1-ai^2*R[k]^ai*(log(R[k]))^2/(1-R[k]^ai)^2)/
(1 - (ai^2*R[k]^ai*(log(R[k]))^2)/(1-R[k]^ai)^2 + ai*(H(k)
- 1/ai - R[k]^ai*log(R[k])/(1-R[k]^ai)))
a0 = at
}
return(at)
}
x<- iter(ai = H(k), k, tolerance = 0.000001)
where R and H are known variables for every k and also an initial estimator for ai is known, namely H(k). This code works fine for any value of k, for example,
x<- iter(ai = H(k), 21, tolerance = 0.000001)
gives a good result. However, my problem is, that when I try to embed this in a for-loop (I actually want a vector x[k] where every iteration for k is calculated), i.e. :
for (k in seq (along = 1: (n-1)){
x<- iter(ai = H(k), 21, tolerance = 0.000001)
}
this code doesn't give me a vector, but instead it gives one value for x. That doesn't make much sense to me, as I'm trying to assign a value to x for every possible k. What am I missing here?
As always, any help would be dearly appreciated.
Since you want a vector, x should be a vector.
x<-numeric(n-1)
for (k in seq (along = 1: (n-1)){
x[k]<- iter(ai = H(k), 21, tolerance = 0.000001)
}
I'm implementing the NTRUEncrypt algorithm, according to an NTRU tutorial, a polynomial f has an inverse g such that f*g=1 mod x, basically the polynomial multiplied by its inverse reduced modulo x gives 1. I get the concept but in an example they provide, a polynomial f = -1 + X + X^2 - X4 + X6 + X9 - X10 which we will represent as the array [-1,1,1,0,-1,0,1,0,0,1,-1] has an inverse g of [1,2,0,2,2,1,0,2,1,2,0], so that when we multiply them and reduce the result modulo 3 we get 1, however when I use the NTRU algorithm for multiplying and reducing them I get -2.
Here is my algorithm for multiplying them written in Java:
public static int[] PolMulFun(int a[],int b[],int c[],int N,int M)
{
for(int k=N-1;k>=0;k--)
{
c[k]=0;
int j=k+1;
for(int i=N-1;i>=0;i--)
{
if(j==N)
{
j=0;
}
if(a[i]!=0 && b[j]!=0)
{
c[k]=(c[k]+(a[i]*b[j]))%M;
}
j=j+1;
}
}
return c;
}
It basicall taken in polynomial a and multiplies it b, resturns teh result in c, N specifies the degree of the polynomials+1, in teh example above N=11; and M is the reuction modulo, in teh exampel above 3.
Why am I getting -2 and not 1?
-2 == 1 mod 3, so the calculation is fine, but it appears that Java's modulus (remainder) operator has an output range of [-n .. n] for mod n+1, instead of the standard mathematical [0..n].
Just stick an if (c[k] < 0) c[k] += M; after your c[k]=...%M line, and you should be fine.
Edit: actually, best to put it right at the end of the outermost (k) for-loop.
I have the following piece of pseudo-C/Java/C# code:
int a[]= { 30, 20 };
int b[] = { 40, 50 };
int c[] = {12, 12};
How do I compute the cross-product ABxAC?
The solution that was given to you in your last question basically adds a Z=0 for all your points. Over the so extended vectors you calculate your cross product. Geometrically the cross product produces a vector that is orthogonal to the two vectors used for the calculation, as both of your vectors lie in the XY plane the result will only have a Z component. The Sign of that z component denotes wether that vector is looking up or down on the XY plane. That sign is dependend on AB being in clockwise or counter clockwise order from each other. That in turn means that the sign of z component shows you if the point you are looking at lies to the left or the right of the line that is on AB.
So with the crossproduct of two vectors A and B being the vector
AxB = (AyBz − AzBy, AzBx − AxBz, AxBy − AyBx)
with Az and Bz being zero you are left with the third component of that vector
AxBy - AyBx
With A being the vector from point a to b, and B being the vector from point a to c means
Ax = (b[x]-a[x])
Ay = (b[y]-a[y])
Bx = (c[x]-a[x])
By = (c[y]-a[y])
giving
AxBy - AyBx = (b[x]-a[x])*(c[y]-a[y])-(b[y]-a[y])*(c[x]-a[x])
which is a scalar, the sign of that scalar will tell you wether point c lies to the left or right of vector ab
Aternatively you can look at stack overflow or gamedev
Assuming whether you're asking whether the angle between AB and AC is acute or obtuse, you want this:
int a[]= { 30, 20 };
int b[] = { 40, 50 };
int c[] = {12, 12};
int ab_x = b[0] - a[0];
int ab_y = b[1] - a[1];
int ac_x = c[0] - a[0];
int ac_x = c[1] - a[1];
int dot = ab_x*ac_x + ab_y*ac_y;
boolean signABxAC = dot > 0; // pick your preferred comparison here
The cross product is a vector, it doesn't have "a sign".
Do you mean the scalar (dot) product? If you do, then that is computed as for a pair of vectors [a,b,c]•[d,e,f] as ad + be + cf, so the sign of that expression is the sign of the dot product.
Figuring out the sign without doing the multiplications and adds is probably not faster than just doing them.
Since all three points have just two components, I'll assume that the z-component for all three is zero. That means that the vectors AB and BC are in the xy-plane, so the cross-product is a vector that points in the z-direction, with its x and y components equal to zero.
If by "sign" you mean whether it points in the positive or negative z-direction, the computation will tell you that.
In your case, the two vectors are AB = (10, 30, 0) and AC = (-18, -8, 0). If I take the cross-product of those two, I get vector AB X AC = (0, 0, 460). Do you mean to say that this has a positive sign because the z-component is positive? If yes, that's your answer.
UPDATE: If it's the scalar product you want, it's negative in this case:
AB dot AC = -180 -240 + 0 = -420.
From reading the question you linked, it seems you want the sign of the z-component of the cross-product (assuming 0 z-value for AB and AC); to indicate which side of the line AB the point C lies.
Assuming that's the case, all you need is the sign of the determinant of the matrix with AB and AC as its rows.
xAB = b[0] - a[0]
yAB = b[1] - a[1]
xAC = c[0] - a[0]
yAC = c[1] - a[1]
detABxAC = (xAB * yAC) - (yAB * xAC)
if (detABxAC < 0)
// sign is negative
elif (detABxAC > 0)
// sign is positive
else
// sign is 0, i.e. C is collinear with A, B
I need to programmatically solve a system of linear equations in C, Objective C, or (if needed) C++.
Here's an example of the equations:
-44.3940 = a * 50.0 + b * 37.0 + tx
-45.3049 = a * 43.0 + b * 39.0 + tx
-44.9594 = a * 52.0 + b * 41.0 + tx
From this, I'd like to get the best approximation for a, b, and tx.
Cramer's Rule
and
Gaussian Elimination
are two good, general-purpose algorithms (also see Simultaneous Linear Equations). If you're looking for code, check out GiNaC, Maxima, and SymbolicC++ (depending on your licensing requirements, of course).
EDIT: I know you're working in C land, but I also have to put in a good word for SymPy (a computer algebra system in Python). You can learn a lot from its algorithms (if you can read a bit of python). Also, it's under the new BSD license, while most of the free math packages are GPL.
You can solve this with a program exactly the same way you solve it by hand (with multiplication and subtraction, then feeding results back into the equations). This is pretty standard secondary-school-level mathematics.
-44.3940 = 50a + 37b + c (A)
-45.3049 = 43a + 39b + c (B)
-44.9594 = 52a + 41b + c (C)
(A-B): 0.9109 = 7a - 2b (D)
(B-C): 0.3455 = -9a - 2b (E)
(D-E): 1.2564 = 16a (F)
(F/16): a = 0.078525 (G)
Feed G into D:
0.9109 = 7a - 2b
=> 0.9109 = 0.549675 - 2b (substitute a)
=> 0.361225 = -2b (subtract 0.549675 from both sides)
=> -0.1806125 = b (divide both sides by -2) (H)
Feed H/G into A:
-44.3940 = 50a + 37b + c
=> -44.3940 = 3.92625 - 6.6826625 + c (substitute a/b)
=> -41.6375875 = c (subtract 3.92625 - 6.6826625 from both sides)
So you end up with:
a = 0.0785250
b = -0.1806125
c = -41.6375875
If you plug these values back into A, B and C, you'll find they're correct.
The trick is to use a simple 4x3 matrix which reduces in turn to a 3x2 matrix, then a 2x1 which is "a = n", n being an actual number. Once you have that, you feed it into the next matrix up to get another value, then those two values into the next matrix up until you've solved all variables.
Provided you have N distinct equations, you can always solve for N variables. I say distinct because these two are not:
7a + 2b = 50
14a + 4b = 100
They are the same equation multiplied by two so you cannot get a solution from them - multiplying the first by two then subtracting leaves you with the true but useless statement:
0 = 0 + 0
By way of example, here's some C code that works out the simultaneous equations that you're placed in your question. First some necessary types, variables, a support function for printing out an equation, and the start of main:
#include <stdio.h>
typedef struct { double r, a, b, c; } tEquation;
tEquation equ1[] = {
{ -44.3940, 50, 37, 1 }, // -44.3940 = 50a + 37b + c (A)
{ -45.3049, 43, 39, 1 }, // -45.3049 = 43a + 39b + c (B)
{ -44.9594, 52, 41, 1 }, // -44.9594 = 52a + 41b + c (C)
};
tEquation equ2[2], equ3[1];
static void dumpEqu (char *desc, tEquation *e, char *post) {
printf ("%10s: %12.8lf = %12.8lfa + %12.8lfb + %12.8lfc (%s)\n",
desc, e->r, e->a, e->b, e->c, post);
}
int main (void) {
double a, b, c;
Next, the reduction of the three equations with three unknowns to two equations with two unknowns:
// First step, populate equ2 based on removing c from equ.
dumpEqu (">", &(equ1[0]), "A");
dumpEqu (">", &(equ1[1]), "B");
dumpEqu (">", &(equ1[2]), "C");
puts ("");
// A - B
equ2[0].r = equ1[0].r * equ1[1].c - equ1[1].r * equ1[0].c;
equ2[0].a = equ1[0].a * equ1[1].c - equ1[1].a * equ1[0].c;
equ2[0].b = equ1[0].b * equ1[1].c - equ1[1].b * equ1[0].c;
equ2[0].c = 0;
// B - C
equ2[1].r = equ1[1].r * equ1[2].c - equ1[2].r * equ1[1].c;
equ2[1].a = equ1[1].a * equ1[2].c - equ1[2].a * equ1[1].c;
equ2[1].b = equ1[1].b * equ1[2].c - equ1[2].b * equ1[1].c;
equ2[1].c = 0;
dumpEqu ("A-B", &(equ2[0]), "D");
dumpEqu ("B-C", &(equ2[1]), "E");
puts ("");
Next, the reduction of the two equations with two unknowns to one equation with one unknown:
// Next step, populate equ3 based on removing b from equ2.
// D - E
equ3[0].r = equ2[0].r * equ2[1].b - equ2[1].r * equ2[0].b;
equ3[0].a = equ2[0].a * equ2[1].b - equ2[1].a * equ2[0].b;
equ3[0].b = 0;
equ3[0].c = 0;
dumpEqu ("D-E", &(equ3[0]), "F");
puts ("");
Now that we have a formula of the type number1 = unknown * number2, we can simply work out the unknown value with unknown <- number1 / number2. Then, once you've figured that value out, substitute it into one of the equations with two unknowns and work out the second value. Then substitute both those (now-known) unknowns into one of the original equations and you now have the values for all three unknowns:
// Finally, substitute values back into equations.
a = equ3[0].r / equ3[0].a;
printf ("From (F ), a = %12.8lf (G)\n", a);
b = (equ2[0].r - equ2[0].a * a) / equ2[0].b;
printf ("From (D,G ), b = %12.8lf (H)\n", b);
c = (equ1[0].r - equ1[0].a * a - equ1[0].b * b) / equ1[0].c;
printf ("From (A,G,H), c = %12.8lf (I)\n", c);
return 0;
}
The output of that code matches the earlier calculations in this answer:
>: -44.39400000 = 50.00000000a + 37.00000000b + 1.00000000c (A)
>: -45.30490000 = 43.00000000a + 39.00000000b + 1.00000000c (B)
>: -44.95940000 = 52.00000000a + 41.00000000b + 1.00000000c (C)
A-B: 0.91090000 = 7.00000000a + -2.00000000b + 0.00000000c (D)
B-C: -0.34550000 = -9.00000000a + -2.00000000b + 0.00000000c (E)
D-E: -2.51280000 = -32.00000000a + 0.00000000b + 0.00000000c (F)
From (F ), a = 0.07852500 (G)
From (D,G ), b = -0.18061250 (H)
From (A,G,H), c = -41.63758750 (I)
Take a look at the Microsoft Solver Foundation.
With it you could write code like this:
SolverContext context = SolverContext.GetContext();
Model model = context.CreateModel();
Decision a = new Decision(Domain.Real, "a");
Decision b = new Decision(Domain.Real, "b");
Decision c = new Decision(Domain.Real, "c");
model.AddDecisions(a,b,c);
model.AddConstraint("eqA", -44.3940 == 50*a + 37*b + c);
model.AddConstraint("eqB", -45.3049 == 43*a + 39*b + c);
model.AddConstraint("eqC", -44.9594 == 52*a + 41*b + c);
Solution solution = context.Solve();
string results = solution.GetReport().ToString();
Console.WriteLine(results);
Here is the output:
===Solver Foundation Service Report===
Datetime: 04/20/2009 23:29:55
Model Name: Default
Capabilities requested: LP
Solve Time (ms): 1027
Total Time (ms): 1414
Solve Completion Status: Optimal
Solver Selected: Microsoft.SolverFoundation.Solvers.SimplexSolver
Directives:
Microsoft.SolverFoundation.Services.Directive
Algorithm: Primal
Arithmetic: Hybrid
Pricing (exact): Default
Pricing (double): SteepestEdge
Basis: Slack
Pivot Count: 3
===Solution Details===
Goals:
Decisions:
a: 0.0785250000000004
b: -0.180612500000001
c: -41.6375875
For a 3x3 system of linear equations I guess it would be okay to roll out your own algorithms.
However, you might have to worry about accuracy, division by zero or really small numbers and what to do about infinitely many solutions. My suggestion is to go with a standard numerical linear algebra package such as LAPACK.
Are you looking for a software package that'll do the work or actually doing the matrix operations and such and do each step?
The the first, a coworker of mine just used Ocaml GLPK. It is just a wrapper for the GLPK, but it removes a lot of the steps of setting things up. It looks like you're going to have to stick with the GLPK, in C, though. For the latter, thanks to delicious for saving an old article I used to learn LP awhile back, PDF. If you need specific help setting up further, let us know and I'm sure, me or someone will wander back in and help, but, I think it's fairly straight forward from here. Good Luck!
Template Numerical Toolkit from NIST has tools for doing that.
One of the more reliable ways is to use a QR Decomposition.
Here's an example of a wrapper so that I can call "GetInverse(A, InvA)" in my code and it will put the inverse into InvA.
void GetInverse(const Array2D<double>& A, Array2D<double>& invA)
{
QR<double> qr(A);
invA = qr.solve(I);
}
Array2D is defined in the library.
In terms of run-time efficiency, others have answered better than I. If you always will have the same number of equations as variables, I like Cramer's rule as it's easy to implement. Just write a function to calculate determinant of a matrix (or use one that's already written, I'm sure you can find one out there), and divide the determinants of two matrices.
Personally, I'm partial to the algorithms of Numerical Recipes. (I'm fond of the C++ edition.)
This book will teach you why the algorithms work, plus show you some pretty-well debugged implementations of those algorithms.
Of course, you could just blindly use CLAPACK (I've used it with great success), but I would first hand-type a Gaussian Elimination algorithm to at least have a faint idea of the kind of work that has gone into making these algorithms stable.
Later, if you're doing more interesting linear algebra, looking around the source code of Octave will answer a lot of questions.
From the wording of your question, it seems like you have more equations than unknowns and you want to minimize the inconsistencies. This is typically done with linear regression, which minimizes the sum of the squares of the inconsistencies. Depending on the size of the data, you can do this in a spreadsheet or in a statistical package. R is a high-quality, free package that does linear regression, among a lot of other things. There is a lot to linear regression (and a lot of gotcha's), but as it's straightforward to do for simple cases. Here's an R example using your data. Note that the "tx" is the intercept to your model.
> y <- c(-44.394, -45.3049, -44.9594)
> a <- c(50.0, 43.0, 52.0)
> b <- c(37.0, 39.0, 41.0)
> regression = lm(y ~ a + b)
> regression
Call:
lm(formula = y ~ a + b)
Coefficients:
(Intercept) a b
-41.63759 0.07852 -0.18061
function x = LinSolve(A,y)
%
% Recursive Solution of Linear System Ax=y
% matlab equivalent: x = A\y
% x = n x 1
% A = n x n
% y = n x 1
% Uses stack space extensively. Not efficient.
% C allows recursion, so convert it into C.
% ----------------------------------------------
n=length(y);
x=zeros(n,1);
if(n>1)
x(1:n-1,1) = LinSolve( A(1:n-1,1:n-1) - (A(1:n-1,n)*A(n,1:n-1))./A(n,n) , ...
y(1:n-1,1) - A(1:n-1,n).*(y(n,1)/A(n,n)));
x(n,1) = (y(n,1) - A(n,1:n-1)*x(1:n-1,1))./A(n,n);
else
x = y(1,1) / A(1,1);
end
For general cases, you could use python along with numpy for Gaussian elimination. And then plug in values and get the remaining values.