Release patch version 1.4.4

[alexzwanenburg]

Prior to merge with master

• [x] code check: run devtools::check(args=c("--no-examples", "--no-tests"), vignettes=FALSE); alternatively rcmdcheck::rcmdcheck(args=c("--no-examples", "--no-tests"))
• [x] test check: run devtools::test(): set options("testthat.progress.max_fails"=Inf) and options("Ncpus"=10)
• [x] create archives for testing backward compatibility against future versions: run tests/old_experiments/archiveExperiments.R
• [x] test backward compatibility against archived experiments: manually run tests/testthat/test-update_object.R
• [x] increment minor package version
• [x] create release name
• [x] update NEWS.md
• [x] merge patches into master

Post-merge

• [x] Check for merging errors.
  • [x] Run a post-merge code check: devtools::check(args=c("--no-examples", "--no-tests"), vignettes=FALSE)
  • [x] Run post-merge test suite, if required.

Github release

• [x] prepare a GithHub release
  • [x] create source tarball using devtools::build and add as binary.
  • [x] copy news from NEWS.md