scipy.optimize

Who: Ariel Rokem, lead instructor.

When: February 19, 2016

Times: 9:15am-12:15pm PST

Where: UC Davis Location: Shields Library, UC Davis campus

Contact Jessica Mizzi with any questions.

Workshop materials

Workshop materials are available online here: http://arokem.github.io/scipy-optimize.

The presentation of these materials is available via YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eFokR-ikaA (live-streamed and then recorded).

During the workshop, there will be an etherpad.

Description

The scipy.optimize library is part of a Python based collection of open source software for scientific, mathematic, and engineering work called Scipy.

In this half-day workshop, we will focus on using this library to find models that are good approximations of data. We will learn how fit different models to experimental data and how to compare different models to each other.

Installation instructions

Please install Python version 3 or higher. Python is a popular language for scientific computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. Installing all of its scientific packages individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend Anaconda, an all-in-one installer. See below for instructions for Windows, Mac or Linux.

Data: please download the data folder from the workshop website.

Windows

  1. Open http://continuum.io/downloads with your web browser.
  2. Download the Python 3 installer for Windows.
  3. Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Make Anaconda the default Python.

Mac OS X

  1. Open http://continuum.io/downloads with your web browser.
  2. Download the Python 3 installer for OS X.
  3. Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation.

Linux

  1. Open http://continuum.io/downloads with your web browser.
  2. Download the Python 3 installer for Linux.
  3. Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation. (Installation requires using the shell).
  4. Open a terminal window.
  5. Type bash Anaconda- and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear.
  6. Press enter. You will follow the text-only prompts. When there is a colon at the bottom of the screen press the down arrow to move down through the text. Type “yes” and press enter to approve the license. Press enter to approve the default location for the files. Type “yes” and press enter to prepend Anaconda to your PATH (this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).
LICENSE: This documentation and all textual/graphic site content is licensed under the Creative Commons - 0 License (CC0) -- fork @ github. Presentations (PPT/PDF) and PDFs are the property of their respective owners and are under the terms indicated within the presentation.