docs: def asscalar(a):
      """ https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/4701 """
      # Do we want to check that the value is numeric?
      #if   isinstance(value, (int, long, float)): return value
      try:
          return np.asscalar(a)
      except AttributeError as e:
          return np.asscalar(np.asarray(a))