Date: Tue, 31 May 1994 04:03:27 -0700
From: Lester Ingber <ingber@alumni.caltech.edu>
Subject: Adaptive Simulated Annealing (ASA) version 3.13
To: ASA_list@alumni.caltech.edu
Reply-to: ingber@alumni.caltech.edu
Message-id: <199405311103.EAA16803@alumni.caltech.edu>
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	Major Changes Since Version 3.12 Announced 29 Apr 94 
________________________________________________________________________
When ASA_SAMPLE is set to TRUE, data is collected by ASA during its
global optimization process to importance-sample the user's variable

Many Monte Carlo sampling techniques require the user to guess an
appropriately decreasing window to sample the variable space.  The fat
tail of the ASA generating function, and the decreasing effective range
of newly accepted points driven by exponentially decreasing temperature
schedules, removes this arbitrary aspect of such sampling.

However, note that, albeit local optima are sampled, the efficiency of
ASA optimization most often leads to poor sampling in regions whose
cost function is far from the optimal point; many such points may be
important contributions to algorithms like integrals.  Accordingly,
ASA_SAMPLE likely is best used to explore new regions and new systems.

________________________________________________________________________
In the NOTES file another alternative time module is given that may
work well across PCs and UNIX workstations.

________________________________________________________________________
$Id: asa_new,v 1.9 1994/05/31 11:01:39 ingber Exp ingber $
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========================================================================
		Adaptive Simulated Annealing (ASA)
________________________________________________________________________
			General Information
 
The latest Adaptive Simulated Annealing (ASA) code and some related
(p)reprints can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from
ftp.alumni.caltech.edu [131.215.139.234] in the /pub/ingber directory.

Interactively [brackets signify machine prompts]:
	[your_machine%] ftp ftp.alumni.caltech.edu
	[Name (...):] anonymous
	[Password:] your_e-mail_address
	[ftp>] cd pub/ingber
	[ftp>] binary
	[ftp>] ls
	[ftp>] get file_of_interest
	[ftp>] quit
The 00index file contains an index of the other files and information
on getting gzip and unshar for DOS, MAC, UNIX, and VMS systems.
 
The latest version of ASA, ASA-x.y (x and y are version numbers), can
be obtained in several formats.  ASA-shar.Z is a compress'd shar'd file
of the current code.  For the convenience of users who do not have any
uncompress/gunzip utility, there is a file ASA-shar which is an
uncompress'd copy of ASA-shar.Z; if you do not have sh or shar, you
still can delete the first-column X's and separate the files at the
END_OF_FILE locations.  There are tar'd versions in compress and gzip
format, ASA.tar.Z and ASA.tar.gz, respectively.  There also is a
current zip'd version, ASA.zip, in which all files have been processed
through unix2dos.  Directory /pub/ingber/0lower.dir contains links to
these files for some PC users who may have difficulty with upper case.

If you do not have ftp access, get information on the FTPmail service
by: mail ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com, and send only the word "help" in the
body of the message.

If any of the above are not possible, and if your mailer can handle
large files (please test this first), the code or papers you require
can be sent as uuencoded compressed files via electronic mail.  If you
have gzip, resulting in smaller files, please state this.

Sorry, I cannot assume the task of mailing out hardcopies of code or
papers.  My volunteer time assisting people with their queries on my
codes and papers must be limited to electronic mail correspondence.

To get on or off the ASA_list e-mailings, just send an e-mail to
asa-request@alumni.caltech.edu with your request.  Update notices are
sent to the ASA_list about every month or two, more frequently if
warranted, e.g., in cases of important bug fixes; these notices are the
only e-mail sent to the ASA_list.

 
Lester
________________________________________________________________________
$Id: asa_retrieve,v 1.70 1994/04/27 16:21:09 ingber Exp $
========================================================================

|| Prof. Lester Ingber                                                ||
|| Lester Ingber Research                                             ||
|| P.O. Box 857                     E-Mail: ingber@alumni.caltech.edu ||
|| McLean, VA  22101      Archive: ftp.alumni.caltech.edu:/pub/ingber ||