Issues in dependency management (e.g. deprecated features in new numpy)

There are some issues related to deprecated features in new versions of some dependencies (numpy) and python itself that ought to be addressed. In case of numpy>=1.23, there are actually breaking changes:

• np.asscalar(x) to be replaced by x.item()
  • the functionality is identical in our case (i.e. no arguments), no risk of breaking anything

Then there are some deprecation warnings for new python>=3.3 versions:

• from collections import Iterable to be replaced by from collections.abc import Iterable
• there is also some occurence of from collections import * which should be replaced by from collections.abc import Iterable for the same reason