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So I have a series of non-linear equations which I wish to solve as fast as possible, to illustrate for the case of $n = 4$, I have the following equations:

\begin{gather*} c_0\exp(\lambda_0-1)+f\exp(\lambda_0 + \lambda_1 + \lambda_2 + \lambda_3 + \lambda_4 - 1) = 1 \\ c_1\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_1-1)+f\exp(\lambda_0 + \lambda_1 + \lambda_2 + \lambda_3 + \lambda_4 - 1) = P_1 \\ c_2\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_2-1)+f\exp(\lambda_0 + \lambda_1 + \lambda_2 + \lambda_3 + \lambda_4 - 1) = P_2 \\ c_3\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_3-1)+f\exp(\lambda_0 + \lambda_1 + \lambda_2 + \lambda_3 + \lambda_4 - 1) = P_3 \\ c_4\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_4-1)+f\exp(\lambda_0 + \lambda_1 + \lambda_2 + \lambda_3 + \lambda_4 - 1) = P_4 \end{gather*} where \begin{gather*} f = \int_{d_4}^{\infty} \int_{d_3}^{\infty} \int_{d_2}^{\infty} \int_{d_1}^{\infty} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 dx_4 \\ c_0 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_4} \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 dx_4 \\ c_1 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_4} \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{d_1}^{\infty} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 dx_4 \\ c_2 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_4} \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{d_2}^{\infty} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 dx_4 \\ c_3 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_4} \int_{d_3}^{\infty}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 dx_4 \\ c_4 = \int_{d_4}^{\infty} \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 dx_4 \\ \end{gather*}

The definitions are as follows:

  • $P_1, P_2, P_3, P_4$ are known values.

  • $d_1, d_2, d_3, d_4$ are known values.

  • $q(x_1, x_2, x_3, x_4)$ is a multivariate normal distribution with mean vector $0$ and a known variance-covariance matrix.

  • Thus $f, c_0, c_1, c_2, c_3, c_4$ are all simply real numbers.


For the general case I have:

\begin{gather*} c_0\exp(\lambda_0-1)+f\exp\left(\sum_{i=0}^n \lambda_i - 1\right) = 1 \\ c_1\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_1-1)+f\exp\left(\sum_{i=0}^n \lambda_i - 1\right) = P_1 \\ c_2\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_2-1)+f\exp\left(\sum_{i=0}^n \lambda_i - 1\right) = P_2 \\ c_3\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_3-1)+f\exp\left(\sum_{i=0}^n \lambda_i - 1\right) = P_3 \\ \vdots \\ c_n\exp(\lambda_0+\lambda_n-1)+f\exp\left(\sum_{i=0}^n \lambda_i - 1\right) = P_n \end{gather*} where \begin{gather*} f = \int_{d_n}^{\infty} \cdots \int_{d_3}^{\infty} \int_{d_2}^{\infty} \int_{d_1}^{\infty} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 \cdots dx_n \\ c_0 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_n} \cdots \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 \cdots dx_n \\ c_1 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_n} \cdots \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{d_1}^{\infty} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 \cdots dx_n \\ c_2 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_n} \cdots \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{d_2}^{\infty} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 \cdots dx_n \\ c_3 = \int_{-\infty}^{d_n} \cdots \int_{d_3}^{\infty}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 \cdots dx_n \\ \vdots \\ c_n = \int_{d_n}^{\infty} \cdots \int_{-\infty}^{d_3}\int_{-\infty}^{d_2} \int_{-\infty}^{d_1} q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n) dx_1 dx_2 dx_3 \cdots dx_n \\ \end{gather*}

The definitions are as follows:

  • $P_1, P_2, P_3, \cdots, P_n$ are known values.

  • $d_1, d_2, d_3, \cdots, d_n$ are known values.

  • $q(x_1, x_2, x_3, \cdots, x_n)$ is a multivariate normal distribution with mean vector $0$ and a known variance-covariance matrix.

  • Thus $f, c_0, c_1, c_2, c_3, \cdots, c_n$ are all simply real numbers.


At most $n$ will be 35, so there will be 36 equations to solve simultaneously. What is the best method to solve this as quickly as possible using whatever programming language possible? Also I will need to change parameter inputs for $P_i$, $d_i$ and the variance covariance matrix and solve for a new set of $\lambda$'s, I will need to do this at least 2000 times, which means effectively I will need to solve a set of 35 equations for 2000 times.

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Unless there's some trick I'm missing, you're going to have to grind out the system of nonlinear equations. Off the top of my head, there's two ways to do this.

The first is Newton's method with a line-search. Basically, you'll have a system of equations $F(x)=0$ and you'll be solving iterates $F^\prime(x) \delta x = -F(x)$ where $F^\prime(x)$ is the Frechet (total) derivative of $F$. It's a linear operator, so you can solve this in something like Matlab or use LAPACK in C++ or one of the numerical libraries in Python. Then, you'll have to do a line-search based on some merit function like $\frac{1}{2}\|F(x+\alpha \delta x)\|^2$ for $\alpha$ and take a step $x+\alpha \delta x$. The line-search is necessary in order to guarantee that Newton's Method converges.

If you have an equality constrained optimization code lying around, you can cheat this and solve $$ \min_{x,y} \{ \frac{1}{2} \|y\|^2 : F(x) = y \} $$ Any good optimization code will do the globalization for you, so it's normally easiest to go this route assuming you have a constrained optimization code.

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  • $\begingroup$ Python, R, Matlab have a library of good optimization algorithms $\endgroup$
    – Hass
    Feb 28, 2018 at 13:30

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