Differences

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--- start [2016/06/07 03:54] – Change Koshika's name zenke
+++ start [2017/09/29 11:07] – Updates home page title zenke
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-====== Welcome to the home of Auryn ======
+====== Welcome to the Auryn website ======
-Auryn is a simulator for spiking neural networks with plastic synapses. More specifically, it is a free simulation environment for medium sized spiking neural networks (e.g. Vogels et al., Science, 2011; Zenke et al., Nature Communications, 2015; [[examples:start#from_published_work|and more]]). It is written from scratch and is complementary to existing neural simulators such as [[http://www.nest-initiative.org|NEST]] and [[http://briansimulator.org/|Brian]], of which many successful concepts were adopted. Its main focus lies on performance to allow simulating balanced networks with different synaptic plasticity rules (tens of thousands of point neurons with sub-millisecond temporal resolution) over extended periods of time (hours to days) efficiently. Auryn is written in C++ and can be run in parallel on clusters using MPI (Auryn also runs on Intel's [[manual:xeonphi|Xeon Phi]] and has experimental [[GPU support]]).
+Auryn is a simulator for spiking neural networks with plastic synapses. It is free and open source software optimized to simulate spiking neural networks with plasticity. Some examples are Vogels et al., Science, 2011; Zenke et al., Nature Communications, 2015; [[examples:start#from_published_work|and more]].
-This wiki aims at providing examples and documentation for Auryn users and developers. To get started have a look at the still growing [[manual:start]] or check out the [[examples:start]] pages. Here you will also find most of the simulation code of [[examples:start&#from_published_work|published work]]. The best place for questions is the [[http://www.fzenke.net/auryn/forum/|support forum]].
-----
+===== When to use Auryn =====
+As a spiking neural network simulator Auryn is complementary to other simulators such as [[http://www.nest-initiative.org|NEST]] and [[http://briansimulator.org/|Brian]]. Instead of focusing on large-scale simulations or ease of model development, Auryn's main focus lies on simulation speed to efficiently simulate small or medium sized network models with plasticity over extended periods of simulated time (hours to days). To that end, Auryn is optimized to run efficiently on shared memory machines and small clusters. Auryn is written in C++ and uses MPI for parallel execution. Moreover, it supports Intel's [[manual:xeonphi|Xeon Phi]] architecture.
+===== Guiding principles =====
+  * **Modularity.** A network model is defined as a collection of objects (e.g. a group of neurons) and the interactions between them (e.g. sparse synaptic connectivity). Additionally, the user defines devices such as monitors to read out activity in the network simulation. The Auryn kernel keeps track of all the simulation objects and runs the simulation (also transparently on a cluster if desired).
+  * **Performance.** Each network object is kept short and simple and optimized for the task at hand. Data is stored in customized vector classes and when possible Auryn uses SIMD (vector instructions at the processor level, e.g. SSE or AVX) to speed up operations on them.
+  * **Easily extensible.** New modules are easy to add (as new neuron or synapse types), and existing modules provide good examples as to how.
+===== Navigating this wiki =====
+This wiki aims at providing examples and documentation for Auryn users and developers. To get started take a look at [[quick start]] and check out the [[Examples:start]] pages. Here you will also find most of the simulation code of [[examples:start&#from_published_work|published work]]. The best place for questions is the [[https://fzenke.net/auryn/forum/|support forum]].
+===== Additional information and copyright =====
 **To cite Auryn:**
 Zenke, F. and Gerstner, W., 2014. Limits to high-speed simulations of spiking neural networks using general-purpose computers. Front Neuroinform 8, 76. doi: [[http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fninf.2014.00076/abstract|10.3389/fninf.2014.00076]]
+**Copyright and License**
+Auryn is written and maintained by [[http://fzenke.net|Friedemann Zenke]] (2014-2016).
+Auryn is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+(at your option) any later version.
+--- Auryn is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+GNU General Public License for more details.
+--- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+along with Auryn.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+**The Auryn logo** Copyright 2013 Koshika Yadava. The term Auryn refers to an artifact in "The Never-ending Story", a novel by Michael Ende.
 **Contribute**
 If you want to have write access to this Wiki, let me know. To learn how to write and modify entries please check out the [[wiki:syntax]] section. If you are looking for a good place to start, you find a list with [[start:wanted]] articles.
-**Copyright and License** Auryn is written and maintained by [[http://www.fzenke.net|Friedemann Zenke]]. The Auryn sources are available under the GPL v3. The Auryn logo: Copyright 2013 Koshika Yadava. The term Auryn refers to an artifact in "The Never-ending Story", a novel by Michael Ende.
+**Site Tracking/Analytics** Only if your browser privacy settings allow tracking, this page tracks visits. This helps me improve the most relevant topics. You can opt out explicitly from tracking [[http://fzenke.net/index.php?page=tracking|using this link]].
 {{ :flag_yellow_low.jpg?100|}}
 **Funding** During Auryn's development Friedemann received support of the European Community's Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement no. 237955 (FACETS-ITN), 269921 (BrainScales) and the European Research Council under grant agreement no. 268689 (MultiRules). Moreover, Friedemann was supported by the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation).
-**Site Tracking/Analytics** Only if your browser privacy settings allow tracking, this page tracks visits. This helps me improve the most relevant topics. You can opt out explicitly from tracking [[http://www.fzenke.net/index.php?page=tracking|using this link]].