{"id":4460,"date":"2012-09-02T14:58:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T13:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=4460"},"modified":"2012-09-02T15:00:40","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T14:00:40","slug":"a-month-of-math-software-%e2%80%93-august-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/?p=4460","title":{"rendered":"A Month of Math Software \u2013 August 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the August edition of A Month of Math Software&#8211; a regular series of articles where I share what&#8217;s shiny and new in the world of mathematical software. \u00a0If you like what you see and want more, take a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?cat=47\">browse through the archives<\/a>. \u00a0If you have some news that you think should go into next month&#8217;s edition, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?page_id=2055\">contact me<\/a> to tell me all about it so I can tell the world.<\/p>\n<p>This edition includes lots of new releases, blog posts and news about mathematics on mobile devices&#8230;enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mobile Mathematics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>August was a very big month for mobile mathematical applications with the following releases<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=4547\">Full LaTeX on iPad with on device compilation and .dvi viewer<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/maximaonandroid\/\">Maxima \u00a0on Android<\/a> &#8211; Maxima is a free computer algebra system with a long pedigree<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.octave&amp;hl=en\">Octave on Android<\/a> &#8211; Octave is basically a free version of MATLAB. \u00a0The author of this package is Corbin Champion who also wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=3908\">Addi<\/a> (a simplified MATLAB clone based on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jmathlib.de\/docs\/handbook\/index.php\">JMathLib<\/a>). \u00a0Corbin tried to get funding via kickstarter (see my article on this &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=4303\">here<\/a>) to allow him to dedicate himself full time to this port but, sadly, was\u00a0unsuccessful. \u00a0Thankfully, Corbin has managed to do some development on the project anyway and has released this package as a starter for 10. \u00a0Its lacking a lot of stuff but is a fantastic start!<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geogebra.org\/cms\/\">Geogebra<\/a> team have started a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/geogebra\/geogebra-for-the-ipad\">kickstarter project that aims to bring Geigebra to iPad<\/a>. \u00a0Why not head over there and pledge some support?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>General purpose mathematics<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/maxima.sourceforge.net\/\">Maxima<\/a>, a free computer algebra system (CAS) for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX, has been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.utexas.edu\/pipermail\/maxima\/2012\/029948.html\">updated to version 5.28<\/a>. \u00a0Back in 2010, a guest writer wrote a Maxima tutorial here at WalkingRandomly &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=2079\">Maxima Tutorial \u2013 plotting direction fields for 1st order ODEs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mathics.org\/\">Mathics<\/a> is a free, lightweight alternative to Mathematica and has recently been <a href=\"https:\/\/groups.google.com\/forum\/#!topic\/mathics-devel\/W3vRFUFEgxw\">updated to version 0.5<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr\/\">Pari\/GP<\/a> is another free computer algebra system that was updated to 2.5.2 in August (The website says august but the <a href=\"http:\/\/pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr\/pub\/pari\/unix\/pari-2.5.2.changelog\">changelog says June<\/a> I&#8217;ve only just noticed the update so its going in August&#8217;s edition) &#8212; \u00a0 Pari focuses on number theory but can be used for many other kinds of computation.<\/li>\n<li>The free <a href=\"http:\/\/euler.rene-grothmann.de\/download.html\">Euler Math Toolbox<\/a> has been updated many times throughout August and is now at version 18.4. \u00a0See the <a href=\"http:\/\/euler.rene-grothmann.de\/Programs\/XX%20-%20Changes.html\">Changelog for what&#8217;s new<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Do numerical computing using&#8230;.Javascript!<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.numericjs.com\/\">Numeric Javascript library<\/a> has been updated to version 1.2.2. The main new feature is linear programming&#8211; the function is numeric.solveLP()<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Mathematical software libraries<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/developer.amd.com\/LIBRARIES\/ACML\/pages\/default.aspx\">The AMD Core Math Libray (ACML)<\/a> has been updated to <a href=\"http:\/\/developer.amd.com\/libraries\/acml\/features\/pages\/default.aspx\">version 5.2.0<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Version 2.4.6 of <a href=\"http:\/\/icl.cs.utk.edu\/plasma\/index.html\">PLASMA<\/a> (Parallel Linear Algebra for Scalable Multi-core Architectures)\u00a0has been released. \u00a0See what&#8217;s new at <a href=\"http:\/\/icl.cs.utk.edu\/plasma\/news\/news.html?id=299\">http:\/\/icl.cs.utk.edu\/plasma\/news\/news.html?id=299<\/a><\/li>\n<li>A new minor version of <a href=\"http:\/\/forge.scilab.org\/index.php\/p\/arpack-ng\/\">ARPACK-NG<\/a> (3.1.2) has been released. \u00a0See <a href=\"http:\/\/forge.scilab.org\/index.php\/p\/arpack-ng\/source\/tree\/master\/CHANGES\">http:\/\/forge.scilab.org\/index.php\/p\/arpack-ng\/source\/tree\/master\/CHANGES<\/a> for the newness. \u00a0ARPACK is a collection of Fortran77 subroutines designed to solve large scale eigenvalue problems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>GPU Programming <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>GPU stands for Graphical Processing Unit but these days you can get a GPU to do a lot more than just graphics. \u00a0You could think of them as essentially massively parallel math \u00a0co-processors that can make light work of certain operations.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Jacket is a commercial GPU Processing add-on for MATLAB. \u00a0In recent blog posts, the Jacket developers discuss <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.accelereyes.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/28\/sar-image-formation-algorithms-on-the-gpu\/\">SAR Image Formation Algorithms<\/a> on the GPU and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.accelereyes.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/13\/jacket-for-option-pricing\/\">Option Pricing<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.culatools.com\/\">CULA<\/a> is a set of commercial GPU-accelerated linear algebra libraries. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.culatools.com\/dense\/\">CULA-Dense<\/a> is, as you might expect, for dense matrices and is now at version 15. \u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.culatools.com\/sparse\/\">CULA-Sparse<\/a> is at version S3. \u00a0I can&#8217;t find a what&#8217;s new document but the main change seems to be the addition of support for NVIDIA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nvidia.com\/object\/nvidia-kepler.html\">Kepler architecture<\/a>. \u00a0The CULA library can be called from C, C++, Fortran, MATLAB, and Python and is <strong>free for individual academic use<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.txcorp.com\/products\/GPULib\/\">GPULib<\/a> is a commercial software library enabling GPU-accelerated calculations for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.exelisvis.com\/ProductsServices\/IDL.aspx\">IDL<\/a>. \u00a0In a recent blog post, one of GPULib&#8217;s developers has been <a href=\"http:\/\/gpulib.blogspot.co.uk\/2012\/08\/experiments-with-opencl.html\">experimenting with OpenCL support<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Statistics<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/socserv.mcmaster.ca\/jfox\/Misc\/Rcmdr\/\">R Commander<\/a>, a basic GUI for the free <a href=\"http:\/\/www.r-project.org\/\">R programming language<\/a>, has been updated to version 1.9.x<\/li>\n<li>IBM&#8217;s SPSS has been updated to version 21. \u00a0Some new features are discussed at <a href=\"http:\/\/www-01.ibm.com\/software\/analytics\/spss\/products\/statistics\/features.html\">http:\/\/www-01.ibm.com\/software\/analytics\/spss\/products\/statistics\/features.html<\/a><\/li>\n<li>VSN International have released version 15.1 of their bio-statistics package, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vsni.co.uk\/software\/genstat\">Genstat<\/a>. \u00a0The list of new stuff is at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vsni.co.uk\/software\/genstat\/15th-edition-new-features\">http:\/\/www.vsni.co.uk\/software\/genstat\/15th-edition-new-features<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Academic codes and applications<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Version 3.0 of the SCIP Optimization Suite has been released. <a href=\"http:\/\/scip.zib.de\/\">According to the website<\/a>, &#8216;SCIP is currently one of the fastest non-commercial <em>mixed                 integer programming (MIP) solvers<\/em>. It is also a framework for                 <em>constraint integer programming<\/em> and                 <em>branch-cut-and-price&#8217;.<\/em> Here are the all important <a href=\"http:\/\/scip.zib.de\/doc\/html\/RELEASENOTES.shtml\">Release Notes<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/scip.zib.de\/doc\/html\/CHANGELOG.shtml\">Changelog<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/tfocs.stanford.edu\/\">Templates for First-Order Conic Solvers<\/a> (TFOCS, pronounced\u00a0<em>tee-fox<\/em>)  is a software package that provides a set of templates, or building  blocks, that can be used to construct efficient, customized solvers for a  variety of models.\u00a0 The latest version, 1.1a, <a href=\"http:\/\/tfocs.stanford.edu\/user-guide\/\">was released back in February<\/a> but I have only recently learned of it and so am including it in this month&#8217;s edition.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/tfocs.stanford.edu\/demos\/\">A set of demos<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/ugcs.caltech.edu\/~srbecker\/wiki\/Main_Page\">wiki<\/a> for this software is available.<\/li>\n<li>Version 1.0 of Blaze has been released.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/blaze-lib\/\"><strong>Blaze<\/strong><\/a> is an open-source, high-performance C++ math library for dense and sparse arithmetic.\u00a0 There is a <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/blaze-lib\/wiki\/Getting_Started\">getting started tutorial<\/a> and a set of <a href=\"http:\/\/code.google.com\/p\/blaze-lib\/wiki\/Benchmarks\">benchmarks<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to the August edition of A Month of Math Software&#8211; a regular series of articles where I share what&#8217;s shiny and new in the world of mathematical software. \u00a0If you like what you see and want more, take a browse through the archives. \u00a0If you have some news that you think should go into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-month-of-math-software"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3swhs-19W","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4460"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4555,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4460\/revisions\/4555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}