Changed
- The manner in which the standard distance is calculated from list
comprehension to a vectorized Numpy implementation, reducing compute
time for that specific calculation by approximately 75%.
- Removed formal testing and support for Python 3.4
([Python 3 adoption rates](https://rushter.com/blog/python-3-adoption/)).
- Raised the minimum numpy version requirement from 1.12.0 to 1.16.3.
Added
- Numba just in time (JIT) compilation to improve the speed of some
of the core functionality, consistently achieving a further 20% reduction
in compute time when _n_ = 1000. Future optimizations could yield
further reductions in computation time. For now, requiring a strict numba version of `0.43.1`
in anticipation of [this deprecation](http://numba.pydata.org/numba-doc/latest/reference/deprecation.html#deprecation-of-reflection-for-list-and-set-types) -
which does not yet have an implemented solution.