  A multidimensional extremal problem in the idempotent algebra setting is
considered which consists in minimizing a nonlinear functional defined on a
finite-dimensional semimodule over an idempotent semifield. The problem
integrates two other known problems by combining their objective functions into
one general function and includes these problems as particular cases. A new
solution approach is proposed based on the analysis of linear inequalities and
spectral properties of matrices. The approach offers a comprehensive solution
to the problem in a closed form that involves performing simple matrix and
vector operations in terms of idempotent algebra and provides a basis for the
development of efficient computational algorithms and their software
implementation.
