Theoretical and practical efficiency measures for symmetric interpolatory quadrature formulas (Q1347075)

The authors demonstrate that a certain theoretical measure of the efficiency of a quadrature rule also provides practical information about the efficiency of the quadrature rule when the rule is used as the local rule for a globally adaptive algorithm. For a degree \(d-1\) rule, the efficiency measure \(R\), which was developed in an earlier paper by the authors and \textit{G. Di Marco} [Asymptotic behavior of automatic quadrature, J. Complexity 10, No. 3, 296-340 (1994)], depends only on the number of nodes for the rule and the rule integration error for the degree \(d\) monomial. Much of the paper establishes notation and terminology developed in earlier work by the authors. The main result is reported in the last section of the paper. In this section test results are given that show a high correlation between the \(R\) value for a rule and the average number of function evaluations needed by a globally adaptive algorithm, which uses the rule, to attain a specified level of accuracy.