[SciPy-User] Parallel Differential Evolution

[Rob Clewley]

Hi,

Maybe the following is a useful implementation for you:

http://cci.lbl.gov/cctbx_sources/scitbx/differential_evolution.py

According to this file you need only the scitbx library, which
unfortunately looks non-trivial to install (it seems to be related to
Boost). However, this looks like an old code (stdlib no longer exists,
you'd just write "import random" now) and all the work done with
arrays using the scitbx library (index of minimum value, mean value,
etc.) can easily be done with the much more easily-installed numpy
library from scipy.org. You probably just need that, a simple graphing
package such as matplotlib, and a working environment such as Ipython.
Binary windows installers are available for all these from a simple
google search for "install X windows" where X is any of the above
packages (they will be found at sourceforge.net). Don't forget to
match the binary installer's version to your version of Python.

So instead of importing flex you'd import numpy and then make the
following substitutions (not tested):

numpy.zeros(X) instead of flex.double(X, 0)

1000*numpy.ones(X) instead of flex.double(X, 1000)

numpy.min(X) for flex.min(X), etc.

numpy.random.uniform(size=N) for flex.random_double(N)

If you get stuck post your code back here and someone can take a look.
Hope this helps,
Rob

On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 6:02 PM, Debabrata Midya
<Debabrata.Midya at services.nsw.gov.au> wrote:
> Hi SciPy-Users,
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> I am Deb, Statistician at NSW Department of Services, Technology and
> Administration, Sydney, Australia.
>
> I am new to this user group as well as to Python and Parallel Python.
>
> I am interested to use Differential Evolution (DE) using Parallel Python on
> Windows XP. I have some experience in DE using GNU GCC compiler.
>
> Is there any software for it? If yes, anyone can assist me what are the
> softwares I need to install and their locations please.
>
> Once again, thank you very much for the time you have given.
>
> I am looking forward for your reply.
>
> Regards,
>
> Deb
>