  We propose a numerical procedure to study closure approximations for FENE
dumbbells in terms of chosen macroscopic state variables, enabling to test
straightforwardly which macroscopic state variables should be included to build
good closures. The method involves the reconstruction of a polymer distribution
related to the conditional equilibrium of a microscopic Monte Carlo simulation,
conditioned upon the desired macroscopic state. We describe the procedure in
detail, give numerical results for several strategies to define the set of
macroscopic state variables, and show that the resulting closures are related
to those obtained by a so-called quasi-equilibrium approximation
\cite{Ilg:2002p10825}.
