[Ifeffit] Larch 0.9.47

[Matt Newville]

Hi Everyone,

Larch 0.9.47 is now available, with installers and source code at
https://xraypy.github.io/xraylarch/installation.html.   For python users,
there is a plain python package available on PyPI and conda packages
for Anaconda
Python.  See the installation docs for more details.

There have been several improvements and bug fixes, especially for the XAS
Viewer application and for XRF modeling in the nearly six months since the
last release.  In particular, there have been two improvements to basic
XAFS and XANES data processing, both based on user reports and comparisons
to older versions of Ifeffit/Athena and give a noticeable change in XAFS
and XANES processing.

First, the ranges used in by the pre_edge() function for finding the edge
step for normalization are now better determined from the actual data range
rather than simply being hard-wired numbers.  These improvements were long
over-due and give noticeably better default results for XANES data,
especially for relatively low-energy edges such as S and Cl K edges.

When reading Athena Project files (say, to import into XAS Viewer), the
pre-edge and normalization ranges from the Athena Project file will be
preserved.  When reading in new raw data, or if you select the "Use Default
Setting" button on the Normalization Panel for any group in XAS Viewer, the
newer defaults will be used.   You can always alter these values, but in
playing around with this with a range of datasets, the new defaults seem to
give a noticeable improvement in almost all cases and rarely bad.

Second, as a few users have pointed out or gently hinted at over many
months, there were sometimes significant differences in the background
removals between classic Autobk/Ifeffit/Athena and Larch, with Larch
sometimes being noticeably and inexplicably worse. I believe this involved
two different problems.  One was introduced a while back when implementing
an estimate of delta_chi - the variance in chi due to the background
subtraction. This estimate is important, but I botched some of the
configurations of the number of knots, fit range, and Rbkg. The other
problem was that "spline clamps" were just done too differently in Larch
and Ifeffit/Athena.

I believe this is now working much better: the background results are much
more consistent, and do not occasionally get "very bad".  They also happen
to be generally closer to Autobk/Ifeffit/Athena, and perhaps slightly
better because the fit range in R-space is now more consistently determined
(instead of wandering +/- a few R data points around Rbkg where the misfit
will often be the largest). In addition, `delta_chi` (never calculated in
Ifeffit/Athena) is now also more consistent.  One consequence of this
change is that a very small change in Rbkg (of say 0.01 to 0.05 Ang) may
actually give no difference at all in mu0(E) or in chi(k).

I bring these changes up because I think they will be noticeable.  I think
they are both improvements, but let me know if you find cases for which you
think are now made worse.   Possibly related: one thing that I definitely
noticed in going through several example data sets was that I tended to
favor a k-weight of 2 instead of 1 for background subtraction -- so much so
that it seemed like this might be a better default.  I did not change this
default yet, but if you have a strong opinion on this, that might be a good
topic for discussion here.

There are some documentation improvements, but this is an ongoing process
and never complete.  It is also one area where help and feedback would
greatly be appreciated.  If you or your students have time to work through
the larch examples and/or documentation and make improvements or even
suggestions for improvements in readability or completeness, it would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

--Matt Newville
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