Version 0.1.1

Major Changes

Project Rename: BrainScale → BrainTrace

• Renamed the entire project from brainscale to braintrace: This change reflects the project's focus on eligibility trace-based learning algorithms
  • Package directory renamed from brainscale/ to braintrace/
  • All internal imports updated from brainscale to braintrace
  • Updated all 95 files including source code, tests, documentation, and examples
  • Updated pyproject.toml with new project name and metadata
  • Updated README with new project branding and citation information

VJP-Based Eligibility Trace Algorithms

• Added new VJP-based eligibility trace module (_etrace_vjp/): Comprehensive implementation of vector-Jacobian product based algorithms

  • base.py: Core base classes and utilities for VJP operations (671 lines)
  • d_rtrl.py: Diagonal Real-Time Recurrent Learning implementation (756 lines)
  • esd_rtrl.py: Efficient Sparse Diagonal RTRL implementation (847 lines)
  • hybrid.py: Hybrid approaches combining multiple techniques (604 lines)
  • graph_executor.py: Graph-based execution for VJP computations
  • misc.py: Miscellaneous utilities including matrix spectrum normalization

• Refactored VJP algorithm structure: Migrated from monolithic _etrace_vjp_algorithms.py (2,888 lines) to modular architecture

  • Better separation of concerns
  • Improved testability with dedicated test files (d_rtrl_test.py, esd_rtrl_test.py, graph_executor_test.py)

Logo and Branding

• Updated logo format from JPG to PNG for consistency
• Updated logo across documentation

Breaking Changes

Package Rename:

1. Import path change: All imports must now use braintrace instead of brainscale

# Old (0.1.0)
import brainscale
from brainscale import EligibilityTrace
from brainscale.nn import Linear, GRUCell

# New (0.1.1)
import braintrace
from braintrace import EligibilityTrace
from braintrace.nn import Linear, GRUCell

2. Installation: Package name changed from brainscale to braintrace

# Old
pip install brainscale

# New
pip install braintrace

Migration Guide

Update Import Statements

Replace all occurrences of brainscale with braintrace:

# Find and replace in your codebase
# brainscale → braintrace

VJP Algorithm Usage

The new VJP-based algorithms are now available through the modular interface:

from braintrace._etrace_vjp import d_rtrl, esd_rtrl, hybrid

Version

• Bumped version from 0.1.0 to 0.1.1