Modernise Packaging

[matthewtownson]

Update CI configuration, dependencies.

• Updated Python versions in AppVeyor and GitHub workflows to 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12.
• Changed testing framework from nosetests to pytest.
• Enhanced requirements with specific version constraints for numpy, scipy, matplotlib, numba, and pytest.
• Added pyproject.toml for build system configuration.
• Corrected README typo from PYTHONTPATH to PYTHONPATH.
• Updated setup.py to use setuptools and improved package installation instructions.

[matthewtownson]

I think this is working correctly now. The issues are:

• permissions for me to deploy docs to aotools (fair, should be fixed if PR accepted)
• actual test failures which we should probably address.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR modernizes the project’s packaging and CI setup to target newer Python versions, migrate test execution to pytest, and tighten dependency/version constraints to better reflect a modern build and test environment.

Changes:

• Updated CI workflows (GitHub Actions, AppVeyor, CodeQL) to newer action versions and Python 3.10–3.12 (per PR intent).
• Switched CI test execution from nosetests to pytest and updated installation steps to pip install ..
• Added pyproject.toml build-system config and applied minimum version constraints across requirements/install dependencies.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 9 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
test/requirements.txt	Adds minimum version constraints for test dependencies.
setup.py	Moves to setuptools + find_packages(), adds python_requires, and constrains runtime deps.
requirements.txt	Pins minimum versions for CI-installed deps (pytest/coverage included).
README.rst	Fixes PYTHONPATH typo and updates source install command to pip install ..
pyproject.toml	Adds PEP 517/518 build-system configuration.
doc/source/conf.py	Improves mocking for importlib behavior and updates Sphinx settings/intersphinx mapping.
appveyor.yml	Updates Windows CI environment and switches to pytest-based runs.
.github/workflows/unit_test.yml	Expands test matrix to 3.10–3.12 and modernizes actions + install steps.
.github/workflows/documentation.yml	Modernizes actions and ensures pip is upgraded before installing docs deps.
.github/workflows/codeql-analysis.yml	Updates CodeQL workflow branches and action versions.

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