Dear NEST Users,
It is a great pleasure to annouce the release of NEST 3.9 which brings numerous improvements contributed by 24 developers through over 1200 commits to the NEST code base. Key enhancements include
* Enhanced e-prop plasticity with biologically inspired features<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3207>
* Re-organised tripartite connectivity generation to support multiple primary connection rules<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3204>
* Windows docker instructions for installation<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3521>
* Updates built-in timer documentation<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3490>
* Extended detailed neuron documentation<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3448>
* Enhanced gunicorn options in NEST Server<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3380>
* Support for per-thread timers and timing MPI synchronization<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3378>
* A logger for nest-server-mpi<https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/pull/3365>
and many bug fixes and code maintenance.
I’d like to thank all who have contributed to making NEST 3.9 possible, in particular Jessica Mitchell who joined Dennis Terhorst in our release team and saw the completion of NEST 3.9—thanks a lot!
Enjoy NEST 3.9!
Hans Ekkehard
--
Prof. Dr. Hans Ekkehard Plesser
Research Committee Chair, Faculty of Science and Technology
Head, Department of Data Science
Department of Data Science
Faculty of Science and Technology
Norwegian University of Life Sciences
PO Box 5003, 1432 Aas, Norway
Phone +47 6723 1560
Email hans.ekkehard.plesser(a)nmbu.no<mailto:hans.ekkehard.plesser@nmbu.no>
Home http://arken.nmbu.no/~plesser
Dear NEST Users & Developers!
I would like to invite you to our next fortnightly Open NEST Developer Video Conference today
*Monday August 25, at 11:30 CEST (UTC+0200).*
As usual, in the Project team round, a contact person of each team will give a short statement summarizing ongoing and planned work in the team and highlight cross-cutting points that need discussion among the teams. The remainder of the meeting we would go into a more in-depth discussion of topics that came up on the mailing list or that are suggested by the teams.
Feel free to join the meeting also if it’s just to bring your own quick questions for direct discussion in the in-depth section.
Agenda
* Welcome
* Review of NEST User Mailing List
* Project team round
* In-depth discussion
The agenda for this meeting is also available online, see https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/wiki/2025-08-25-Open-NEST-Developer-… <https://github.com/nest/nest-simulator/wiki/2025-08-25-Open-NEST-Developer-…>
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
Cheers,
Dennis Terhorst
Log-in information
We use a virtual conference room provided by DFN <https://www.dfn.de/en/> (Deutsches Forschungsnetz).
You can use the web client to connect. We however encourage everyone to use a headset for better audio quality or even a proper video conferencing system (see below) or software when available.
Web client
* Visit https://conf.dfn.de/webapp/conference/97938800 <https://conf.dfn.de/webapp/conference/97938800>
* Enter your name and allow your browser to use camera and microphone
* The conference does not need a PIN to join, just click join and you’re in.
In case you see a dfnconf logo and the phrase “Auf den Meetingveranstalter warten”, just be patient, the meeting host needs to join first (a voice will tell you).
VC system/software
How to log in with a video conferencing system, depends on you VC system or software.
* Using the H.323 protocol (eg Polycom): |vc.dfn.net##97938800| or |194.95.240.2##97938800|
* Using the SIP protocol:97938800@vc.dfn.de <mailto:97938800@vc.dfn.de>
* By telephone: |+49-30-200-97938800|
For those who do not have a video conference system or suitable software, Polycom provides a pretty good free app for iOS and Android, so you can join from your tablet (Polycom RealPresence Mobile, available from AppStore/PlayStore). Note that firewalls may interfere with videoconferencing in various and sometimes confusing ways.
For more technical information on logging in from various VC systems, please see
http://vcc.zih.tu-dresden.de/index.php?linkid=1.1.3.4 <http://vcc.zih.tu-dresden.de/index.php?linkid=1.1.3.4>
--
Dipl.-Phys. Dennis Terhorst
Coordinator Software Development
Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6)
Computational and Systems Neuroscience
&
JARA-Institute Brain Structure-Function Relationships (INM-10)
Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine
Jülich Research Center, Member of the Helmholz Association
52425 Jülich, Germany
http://www.csn.fz-juelich.de/
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Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
52425 Jülich
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Jülich
Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Düren Nr. HR B 3498
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Stefan Müller
Geschäftsführung: Prof. Dr. Astrid Lambrecht (Vorsitzende),
Dr. Stephanie Bauer (stellvertretende Vorsitzende),
Prof. Dr. Ir. Pieter Jansens, Prof. Dr. Laurens Kuipers
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Dear NEST Developers,
I have just merged PR #3569, which fixes slight glitches in the NEST testsuite. Please pull the newest master into all your open branches for pull requests to ensure that all test run.
Note that PRs moving test from SLI to Py will from now on need to reduce the lower bound for the corresponding type of test (unit, regression, mpi) in testsuite/summarize_tests.py.
Happy hacking!
Hans Ekkehard
--
Prof. Dr. Hans Ekkehard Plesser
Research Committee Chair, Faculty of Science and Technology
Head, Department of Data Science
Department of Data Science
Faculty of Science and Technology
Norwegian University of Life Sciences
PO Box 5003, 1432 Aas, Norway
Phone +47 6723 1560
Email hans.ekkehard.plesser(a)nmbu.no<mailto:hans.ekkehard.plesser@nmbu.no>
Home http://arken.nmbu.no/~plesser