First release candidate for version 0.8.2 available

[Gaëtan de Menten]

I am pleased to announce that the first release candidate for version 0.8.2 of LIAM2 is now available.

Please test this pre-release with your models and report back any problems. If all goes well, the final release will be out next week.

The highlights of this release are:
- allow loading globals from csv files directly in the simulation, instead of having them in the input HDF file.
- decreased memory usage for models with many periods.

More details and the complete list of changes are available at the end of this message.

This pre-release can be downloaded from:
http://liam2.plan.be/download/LIAM2Suite-0.8.2rc1-win32.zip
http://liam2.plan.be/download/LIAM2Suite-0.8.2rc1-win64.zip
http://liam2.plan.be/download/LIAM2-0.8.2rc1-src.zip

Documentation is available at:
http://liam2.plan.be/documentation/0.8.2rc1/
http://liam2.plan.be/download/LIAM2UserGuide-0.8.2rc1.pdf

As always, *any* feedback is very welcome, preferably on the liam2-users
mailing list: liam2...@googlegroups.com (you need to register to be
able to post).

New features
------------

* allow loading globals from csv files directly, instead of having them in the
  input HDF file. One can mix both approaches (have some globals in the "input"
  HDF file while other globals in .csv files). This makes it more practical in
  case you have a relatively stable input dataset for entities, but need to
  change the globals often, or have several variants with different globals.
  See the :ref:`globals_declaration` section for details. This closes
  :issue:`30`.

* added a new simulation option category: "logging". This is the new home for
  the existing "timings" option, and for a new "level" option, which allows
  to sets the verbosity of logging to one of `periods`, `procedures` (this is
  the default) or `processes` (which corresponds to the behavior in
  earlier versions).

Miscellaneous improvements
--------------------------

* decreased memory usage for models with many periods. It used to keep the
  index of individuals of past periods forever in memory, which had
  approximately the same effect than adding one column for each period.
  Since it is only useful when going back in time more than one period, it now
  flushes it to disk for periods < period - 1. This change has two consequences:
  it will decrease memory use for models with many periods but will slow down
  models going back in time more than one period. This closes :issue:`130`.

* the "top times" at the end of the simulation now also include the % of total.

* after each period, a very rough estimate of the remaining time for the
  simulation is displayed (closes :issue:`127` in combination with the
  logging/level option).

* updated all dependencies provided in the bundle.

Fixes
-----

* Using links or other "non-simple" variables in the score expression of the
  matching() function was a lot slower and memory-hungry than necessary
  because some "system temporary variables" kept accumulating. It is still a
  lot slower than it should though, see :issue:`128`.

-- 
Gaëtan de Menten

Federal Planning Bureau
Economic Analyses & Forecasts
Avenue des Arts, 47-49 | 1000 Brussels
tel. +32 (0)2 507 7459
fax  +32 (0)2 507 7373
email : g...@plan.be | www.plan.be