Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

The judicial activism of the constitutional judge in Latin-America and Spain [El activismo judicial del juez constitucional en iberoamérica]

The concept of judicial activism is an American creation with a lot of influence in Ibero-America. Through the years, many definitions have been given to judicial activism, which merges with the expression «government by judges». The concept has been criticized lately by the doctrine due to its different meanings, despite some interpretations of the Supreme Court of the United States allowing, from the judicial perspective, to better identify the cases in which the judges are called to be activists. However, these interpretations of judicial activism must be adapted to be correctly used in the Ibero-American context, because of the particularities of social inequality, problems in the distribution of wealth and the malfunctioning of democratic mech-anisms, which varies widely in our culture. © 2020, Centro Estudios Politicos Constitucionales. All rights reserved

Caracterización del polen de especies de los géneros Passiflora y Dilkea

Se desarrolló una lista de descriptores y se caracterizó el polen de 156 accesiones de 121 especies del género Passiflora y dos de Dilkea. Las accesiones se obtuvieron de colectas en campo y de herbarios nacionales. Las muestras se observaron en microscopia óptica y electrónica de barrido. El polen de D. margaritae es mediano, casi pequeño, prolato a subprolato y tricolporado, mientras el de D. acuminata es mediano, oblato-esferoidal, 4-, parcialmente 5-colporado. En las dos especies es reticulado pero las lúminas tienen diámetros más irregulares en D. margaritae. En Passiflora el polen es mediano, con amplia variación, a veces llegando a grande, prolato a oblato-esferoidal, reticulado, con lúminas de diámetro irregular, excepto para P. macrophylla y P. sp (subgénero Astrophea), donde sólo hay remanentes de los muros que conforman el retículo. = Pollen characterization of genera Passiflora and Dilkea. 156 accessions of 121 species of Passiflora and two species of Dilkea were collected in the field or gathered from national herbaria. The samples were analyzed by using optical and scanning electron microscopy D. margaritae has a pollen of medium size, but in an inferior range, prolate to subprolate, and tricolporate, while D. acuminata has a pollen of medium size, oblate-spherical, 4-partially 5-colporate. The pollen of both species is reticular, and the lumina have more irregular diameter in D. margaritae. In Passiflora, the pollen is medium, but with a wide variation (small to large), prolate to oblate-spherical, reticulated, with lumina of irregular diameter, except for P. macrophylla and P. sp (subgenus Astrophea), whose reticulum is constituted by residual muri