Electrocution by power lines is one of the main causes of non-natural mortality in birds of prey. In an area in central Spain, we surveyed 6304 pylons from 333 power lines to determine electrocution rates, environmental and design factors that may influence electrocution and the efficacy of mitigation measures used to minimise electrocution cases. A total of 952 electrocuted raptors, representi...

Abstract Insulators play a critical role in healthy transmission under the influence of operational stresses (OSs). OSs include environmental (ultraviolet-radiations, seasonal heat and humidity variations, pollution (inert active), etc.) electrical (electric field distribution, corona, etc.). can deteriorate insulators, jeopardizing transmission. In this experimental study, four silicon rubber ...

Much of the research on insulators in Drosophila has been done with transgenic constructs using the white gene (mini-white) as reporter. Hereby we report that the sequence between the white and CG32795 genes in Drosophila melanogaster contains an insulator of a novel kind. Its functional core is within a 368 bp segment almost contiguous to the white 3'UTR, hence we name it as Wari (white-abutti...

Two large electric utilities, located on the US West Coast, use a considerable number of composite insulators on their power transmission lines. Some of these insulators may be prone to premature insulation degradation caused by poor design, manufacturing defects, pollution or construction mishandling, or gunshot vandalism. This may result in flashover and power outages, unless the state of the...

Insulators are DNA sequence elements that can serve in some cases as barriers to protect a gene against the encroachment of adjacent inactive condensed chromatin. Some insulators also can act as blocking elements to protect against the activating influence of distal enhancers associated with other genes. Although most of the insulators identified so far derive from Drosophila, they also are fou...

Insulators are genomic elements that regulate transcriptional activity by forming chromatin boundaries. Various DNA insulators have been identified or are postulated in many organisms, and the paradigmatic CTCF-dependent insulators are perhaps the best understood and most widespread in function. The diversity of DNA insulators is, however, understudied, especially in the context of embryonic de...

Quantum-phase transitions between trivial insulators and topological insulators differ from ordinary metal-insulator transitions in that they arise from the inversion of the bulk band structure due to strong spin-orbit coupling. Such topological phase transitions are unique in nature as they lead to the emergence of topological surface states which are characterized by a peculiar spin texture t...

Since the discovery of Harper-Hofstadter model, it has been known that condensed matter systems with periodic modulations can be promoted to nontrivial topological states emergent gauge fields in higher dimensions. In this paper, we develop a general procedure compute dimensions associated low-dimensional (charge- and spin-) density wave modulations. We construct two-dimensional (2D) models hig...

We investigate the spontaneous triboelectrification of similar materials. This effect, first reported in 1927, has been little studied but is easily reproduced. We find in two separate experimental systems, where materials are prepared in the same way and rubbed symmetrically, that symmetry breaking occurs so that one material becomes positive and the other negative. Curiously, the distribution...