I've been considering a "smooth step" function such as
1/(1+exp(-100*x)). I don't anticipate any very quickly growing
functions which might make the near-but-not-exactly zero portion of
this function (ie. to the left of x=0) diverge. Since it would be very
useful to be able to integrate my "spending rates" and determine the
probability distribution of total project costs at different times in
the future (based on monte-carlo methods) it would be nice to have a
smooth step function.
Does anyone have recommendations on a better "smooth step" than the
one I suggest above? (ie. one that makes for simpler integrals or one
that is dominant over a larger class of functions without complicating
the integrals uneccessarily)
Thanks!
Dan
--
Daniel Lakeland
dlakelan at street-artists.org
http://www.street-artists.org/~dlakelan