v8.17.0

ModelingToolkit v8.17.0

Diff since v8.16.0

Closed issues:

• Non-existent variable missing from variable map (#1628)
• varmap_to_vars fails when used inside of loss function for optimization. (#1692)
• ODEFunction is type-unstable (#1697)

Merged pull requests:

• Girsanov transformation for variance reduction of expected values (#1439) (@frankschae)
• Better tearing lowering (including implicit DAE to semi-implicit ODE transform) (#1650) (@YingboMa)
• Strong alias elimination and semi-implicit ODE lowering (#1685) (@YingboMa)
• add description metadata to variables (#1688) (@baggepinnen)
• Fix typo (#1696) (@bowenszhu)
• Discuss using MTK in loss functions in the FAQ (#1698) (@ChrisRackauckas)