Conchobar mac Nessa is the king of Ulster in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. He rules from Emain Macha, he is said to be the son of the High King Fachtna Fáthach, although in some stories his father is the druid Cathbad, he is known by his matronymic, mac Nessa: his mother is Ness, daughter of Eochaid Sálbuide, King of Ulster. There are several versions of. In the earliest, daughter of Eochaid Sálbuide, the king of Ulster, asks the druid Cathbad what it is an auspicious time for. Cathbad replies, "for begetting a king on a queen". There are no other men around, so Ness takes Cathbad to bed and she conceives a son. In a version, Ness is brought up by twelve foster-fathers, while all twelve are at a feast, leading a fian or landless war-band, attacks the house and kills them all. Eochaid is unable to avenge them as the culprit cannot be identified, so Ness forms her own fian to hunt Cathbad down, but while she is bathing alone in a pool, Cathbad appears, stands between her and her weapons, bares his sword.

He spares her life on the condition. They settle near a river called Conchobar, Ness soon conceives a son, but in this version, the father is the High King Fachtna Fáthach, Ness's lover; as she and Cathbad set out to visit Fachtna, Ness goes into labour. Cathbad tells her if she can manage not to give birth until the following day, her son will be a great king and have everlasting fame, for he will be born on the same day as Jesus Christ. Ness sits on a flagstone by the river Conchobar, the following morning gives birth; the baby falls into the river, but Cathbad lifts him out, names him Conchobar after the river, brings him up as his own son. By the time Conchobar is seven, Fergus mac Róich falls in love with Ness, she agrees to become his wife, on one condition: that Fergus allows Conchobar to be king for a year, so his children will be called the sons of a king. The nobles of Ulster advise Fergus that this will not affect his standing with them, as the boy will be king in name only, so he agrees.

But Conchobar, advised by his mother, rules so well that by the end of the year it's decided he should be king permanently. Fergus makes an alliance with the new High King, Eochu Feidlech, they make war on Ulster. After a series of bloody battles, Conchobar makes overtures for peace. Fergus is offered land, the Champion's Portion at Emain Macha, the position of Conchobar's heir. Conchobar demands compensation from Eochu for the killing of his father, Fachtna Fáthach, is granted land and the High King's daughter in marriage. Conchobar marries several of Eochu's daughters. Medb queen of Connacht, is the first, she bears him a son soon leaves him. Her sister Eithne conceives a son by him, her son Furbaide is delivered by posthumous Caesarian section. Mugain bears him a son remains his chief wife; the mother of Conchobar's eldest son, Cormac Cond Longas, is either Eochu's daughter Clothru or Conchobar's own mother Ness. Cormac is given to Fergus mac Róich to foster, his other sons include Folloman. His daughter Fedelm Noíchrothach marries Cairbre Nia Fer, King of Tara, they have a son, a daughter, Achall.

Conchobar has Findchóem and Deichtine. Findchóem marries the poet Amergin, they have a son, Conall Cernach. Deichtine is the mother of Cú Chulainn, by either the god Lugh; when Conchobar is visiting the house of his storyteller Fedlimid mac Daill, Fedlimid's wife gives birth to a daughter. Cathbad, now Conchobar's chief druid, prophesies that she will be so beautiful that kings will go to war over her, she will bring nothing but sorrow; the child is named Deirdre, Conchobar decides to have her brought up in seclusion from men, intending to marry her when she comes of age. However, she elopes with a young warrior called Naoise. Along with Naoise's two brothers, the couple go into hiding and are forced to flee to Scotland. Wherever they settle, the local king tries to have the brothers killed so he can have Deirdre for himself, they have to move on. Conchobar tracks them down to a remote island and sends Fergus to them with his guarantee of safe passage home. On the way home he arranges for Fergus to be separated from his charges by having him invited to a feast, so they are escorted back to Emain Macha by Fergus's son Fiachu.

When they arrive, Fiachu and his brothers are murdered on Conchobar's orders by Éogan mac Durthacht, Deirdre is forced to marry Conchobar. Fergus, outraged by the death of his son and the betrayal of his honour, makes war against Conchobar, alongside Cormac Cond Longas, who sides with his foster-father against his father, Dubthach Dóeltenga, they burn Emain and slaughter the maidens of Ulster, before going into exile with Medb and her husband Ailill in Connacht. Deirdre lives with Conchobar for a year, but during that time she never smiles eats or sleeps, refuses to be comforted. Conchobar asks her what it is she hates, she replies, "you, Éogan mac Durthacht." Conchobar gives her to Éogan. The next day, riding in Éogan's chariot, she commits suicide by dashing her head against a stone; when Medb raises an army from four of the five provinces of Ireland and launches an invasion of Ulster to steal the bull Donn Cúailnge in the Táin Bó Cúailnge, like all the Ulstermen but Cú Chulainn, is unable to fight, disabled by the curse of Macha.

Cú Chulainn fights a s

Peroxisomal membrane protein PEX16 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the PEX16 gene. The protein encoded by this gene is an integral peroxisomal membrane protein. An inactivating nonsense mutation localized to this gene was observed in a patient with Zellweger syndrome of the complementation group CGD/CG9. Expression of this gene product morphologically and biochemically restores the formation of new peroxisomes, suggesting a role in peroxisome organization and biogenesis. Alternative splicing has been observed for this gene and two variants have been described. PEX16 has been shown to interact with PEX19. GeneReviews/NCBI/NIH/UW entry on Peroxisome Biogenesis Disorders, Zellweger Syndrome Spectrum OMIM entries on Peroxisome Biogenesis Disorders, Zellweger Syndrome Spectrum

Torre di Roncisvalle is a tower overlooking Valtellina at an altitude of 689 metres, located in the Castionetto district of Chiuro, in the province of Sondrio, northern Italy. The massive tower offers an effective lookout point today; the building is said to have belonged to Stefano Quadrio and is known as the Castionetto or Roncisvalle tower, the latter evoking the legendary route of Roncesvalles in Navarre, Spain. The tower is mentioned in notarial deeds in the Middle Ages, one such document, drawn up in 1460, states a sale by Maria Maffina to Andrea Maffina, the property comprised: a vineyard, woodlands, threshing barn, stable with hayloft, indoor kitchen with hearth, two courtyards, right of way, located in the Castionetto district "ubi dictor ad dossum majorem seu ad Ronzivallem".. The Italian philologist and literary critic Cesare Segre attributes the name Roncisvalle to "roscida valle", meaning a damp valley, to "roscidare", meaning to irrigate, but to "ronco", "runchet" from "runcare", to till a ground for planting new vines.

The square-plan tower is eleven metres in length and width, fifteen metres high, far more imposing than those surviving at Teglio, Castello dell'Acqua, the two towers that are part of the respective Grumello castles, the Mancapane tower above Montagna, the two Castel Masegra towers, the Santa Maria di Tirano castle tower, the Bellaguarda castle tower at Tovo di Sant'Agata. Given the sturdiness of the structure, with walls as thick as two and a half metres at the base, the tower must have played a defensive as well as an observation role. Indeed, in 1487, defended by Zenone Groppello, the tower served as a precious bulwark against the invasion attempted by Grisons; the tower was restored in more recent times, after centuries of neglect, reopened to the public in May 2003. The design aspects of the tower are significant, imitating forms of construction inspired by Lombard architectural traditions, highlighted by the materials used and by the quality of the details, like the ogival windows outlined with close-set ashlars.

The façades have a uniform appearance thanks to the building method of standardized measures and materials seen in the stone courses and the cornerstones with characteristic bosses. The opening on the first floor was the entrance, accessed by a drawbridge operated from a niche above it. Today's entrance corresponds to an earlier opening; the ground floor and the first floor are barrel vaulted and a stone staircase leads up to the second floor. No known documents establish the tower's construction period, although scholars agree that it can be dated thirteenth–fifteenth century, the period of greatest prosperity for the Quadrio family, settled down at Chiuro at the time; the Quadrios were from Como, left the city in the twelfth century, because of the Guelph–Ghibelline feuds. From the end of the 1300s to the first half of the 1400s, the military captain Stefano Quadrio led the village of Chiuro into a thriving economic and political period. Stefano owned a castle in Sazzo, a district of Ponte in Valtellina, but in what is now Via Torre there are the remains of his fortified mansion, built "ad Visnatem".

Chiuro was dotted with towers whose lower sections are visible in buildings erected on them. In his Castelli e Torri Valtellinesi, Egidio Pedrotti writes that Zenone Gropello – a Sforza family military commander – used the tower and the Chiuro fortifications as a base, following the first Grisons attack of Valtellina, in 1486–7, it is that during Grisons rule, the Castionetto tower suffered the same fate as the fortifications in the province of Sondrio since the invaders reinforced their control by neutralizing the military features of occupied territories. N a document dated 1622, kept in the Chiuro archives, the tower is listed as the property of the religious order "Scuola del Rosario", which owned the building and surrounding land until the early 1800s, when it became the property of the "Scuola del SS. Sacramento". By the first half of the nineteenth century, the Lombardy–Veneto land registers listed the lands as the property of the municipality of Chiuro. In 1885, the Lavizzari title deed states that the land and the tower had been expropriated and had become municipal property Subsequently the tower fell into neglect although it lost none of its monumental character.

Restoration work carried out in the early 2000s, funded under Law No 102/90, restored the tower to public use and ensured its preservation as a monument

Renne Gail Jarrett is an American actress. Born in New York City, Jarrett is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Jarrett, her father managed mutual funds, her mother managed Jarrett's career. She and her two younger sisters were child models, she is a graduate of the Nightingale-Bamford School, she attended Northwestern University. She was a member of the Junior League. By age eight, Jarrett had appeared more than 25 times on dramatic television programs, including Studio One and was a regular on the daytime drama Portia Faces Life, she created the role of Eileen McCallion on Love of Life and acted on The Edge of Night and The Secret Storm. She had the title role as the daughter of a U. S. president in the NBC situation comedy Nancy. She made more than 100 commercials for products that included Colgate 100, Reynolds Wrap, Scotch Tape. On Broadway, Jarrett portrayed Rita Flannigan in The Loud Red Patrick and a maid in Giants, Sons of Giants. On September 11, 1971, Jarrett married actor John Rothery Stauffer in New York City

PRNP is the human gene encoding for the major prion protein PrP known as CD230. Expression of the protein is most predominant in the nervous system but occurs in many other tissues throughout the body; the protein can exist in multiple isoforms, the normal PrPC and protease-resistant forms designated PrPRes such as the disease-causing PrPSc and an isoform located in mitochondria. The misfolded version PrPSc is associated with a variety of cognitive disorders and neurodegenerative diseases such as in animals: ovine scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, feline spongiform encephalopathy, transmissible mink encephalopathy, exotic ungulate encephalopathy, chronic wasting disease which affects cervids. Similarities exist between kuru, thought to be due to human ingestion of diseased individuals, vCJD, thought to be due to human ingestion of BSE-tainted cattle products; the human PRNP gene is located on the short arm of chromosome 20 between the end of the arm and position 13, from base pair 4,615,068 to base pair 4,630,233.

PrP is conserved through mammals, lending credence to application of conclusions from test animals such as mice. Comparison between primates is similar, ranging from 92.9-99.6% similarity in amino acid sequences. The human protein structure consists of a globular domain with three α-helices and a two-strand antiparallel β-sheet, an NH2-terminal tail, a short COOH-terminal tail. A glycophosphatidylinositol membrane anchor at the COOH-terminal tethers PrP to cell membranes, this proves to be integral to the transmission of conformational change; the primary sequence of PrP is 253 amino acids long before post-translational modification. Signal sequences in the amino- and carboxy- terminal ends are removed posttranslationally, resulting in a mature length of 208 amino acids. For human and golden hamster PrP, two glycosylated sites exist on helices 2 and 3 at Asn181 and Asn197. Murine PrP has glycosylation sites as Asn180 and Asn196. A disulfide bond exists between Cys214 of the third helix. PrP messenger RNA contains a pseudoknot structure, thought to be involved in regulation of PrP protein translation.

The mechanism for conformational conversion to the scrapie isoform is speculated to be an elusive ligand-protein, but, so far, no such compound has been identified. However, a large body of research has developed on candidates and their interaction with the PrPC. Copper, zinc and nickel are confirmed PrP ligands that bind to its octarepeat region. Ligand binding causes a conformational change with unknown effect. Heavy metal binding at PrP has been linked to resistance to oxidative stress arising from heavy metal toxicity. Although the precise function of PrP is not yet known, it is involved in the transport of ionic copper to cells from the surrounding environment. Researchers have proposed roles for PrP in cell signaling or in the formation of synapses. PrPC attaches to the outer surface of the cell membrane by a glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchor at its C-terminal Ser231. Prion protein contains five octapeptide repeats with sequence PHGGGWGQ; this is thought to generate a copper-binding domain via nitrogen atoms in the histidine imidazole side-chains and deprotonated amide nitrogens from the 2nd and 3rd glycines in the repeat.

The ability to bind copper is, therefore, pH-dependent. NMR shows copper binding results in a conformational change at the N-terminus. PrPSc is a conformational isoform of PrPC, but this orientation tends to accumulate in compact, protease-resistant aggregates within neural tissue; the abnormal PrPSc isoform has a different secondary and tertiary structure from PrPC, but identical primary sequence. Circular dichroism shows that normal PrPC has 43% alpha helical and 3% beta sheet content, whereas PrPSc is only 30% alpha helix and 43% beta sheet. However, the presence of alpha helices in infectious PrPSc has come into question, with current models proposing a lack of alpha helices all together, replaced instead with a total beta sheet composition; this refolding renders the PrPSc isoform resistant to proteolysis. The propagation of PrPSc is a topic of great interest, as its accumulation is a pathological cause of neurodegeneration. Based on the progressive nature of spongiform encephalopathies, the predominant hypothesis posits that the change from normal PrPC is caused by the presence and interaction with PrPSc.

Strong support for this is taken from studies in which PRNP-knockout mice are resistant to the introduction of PrPSc. Despite widespread acceptance of the conformation conversion hypothesis, some studies mitigate claims for a direct link between PrPSc and cytotoxicity. Polymorphisms at sites 136, 154, 171 are associated with varying susceptibility to ovine scrapie. Polymorphisms of the PrP-VRQ form and PrP-ARQ form are associated with increased susceptibility, whereas PrP-ARR is associated with resistance; the National Scrapie Plan of the UK aims to breed out these scrapie polymorphisms by increasing the frequency of the resistant allele. However, PrP-ARR polymorphisms are susceptible to atypical scrapie, so this may prove unfruitful; the strong association to neurodegenerative diseases raises many questions of the function of PrP in the brain. A common approach is usin

Agriculture has been the primary industry of the English county of Cheshire. Dairy farming has predominated, the county was known for cheese-making; the area now forming Cheshire was sparsely populated during the entire prehistoric period compared with southern England. The earliest archaeological evidence of farming dates from the Early Neolithic period. Burnt grain found at Tatton in association with post holes and flint artefacts dated to 3500–2900 BC has been interpreted as a transitory farming settlement. Local historian W. J. Varley speculates that the earliest Neolithic farmers cleared the forest to cultivate emmer wheat and barley using mattocks of bone or stone, herded oxen, goats and pigs using dogs; the absence of lime-rich basic soils and the high rainfall might have delayed Cheshire's agricultural exploitation compared with the adjacent areas of North Wales and the Peak District, with light soils overlaying sand, gravel or sandstone being cultivated before poorly drained clay soils.

In the Bronze Age, agricultural usage was concentrated on uplands in the Pennine fringe in the east of the county and the Mid Cheshire Ridge. This trend continued during the Iron Age, although there were some scattered lowland farmsteads such as at Bruen Stapleford. Pollen analysis suggests extensive forest clearance had occurred by or during the Roman period, although there is little evidence that the land was cultivated. Only limited evidence of Roman field systems has been found in the county. Spelt was grown at the Roman settlement of Wilderspool and a farmstead has been excavated at Birch Heath, Tarporley. Querns have been discovered at the settlement near the legionary fortress of Deva. Corn-drying ovens were installed at Cheshire's only known Roman villa at Eaton by Tarporley; the Domesday survey of 1086 forms the first documentary evidence for agriculture in the county. The county continued to be sparsely populated at this date compared with southern England and the South Midlands; the total population has been estimated to lie between 10,500 and 11,000, with a population density ranging from uninhabited in the east of the county to 20 per square mile in the Wirral and the valleys of the Dee and Weaver.

The county contained around 490 hides of farmed land in the west, where "hide" refers to a variable area equivalent to the land that could support a household. A total of 935 ploughlands was recorded. One interpretation of these figures is that only around 50% of the available arable land was in cultivation at the time of the survey because much of the county had made only a limited recovery from the devastation caused by William I's suppression of the Mercian uprisings sixteen years previously. An alternative view is that some land had not been taxed. At the time of the Domesday survey, mixed subsistence farming was the norm; the main crops grown were wheat, barley and peas. Little meadow was recorded in the Domesday survey. Though not mentioned in the survey, cattle and sheep were the main livestock at this date. In the 12th century, the area was described as being "unproductive of cereals of corn". During the 12th to 14th centuries, the main crops were barley and rye, with wheat being grown.

In the 15th and 16th centuries and oats were grown across the county, with rye being concentrated in the south. Peas and beans were grown in the north, other crops included hemp and flax; the three-field system of crop rotation appears not to have been used in the county, with irregular field systems taking its place, as in much of northern England. There is evidence for around 250 held open fields across Cheshire, which were smaller than those in the Midlands, used a two-field or multiple-field pattern. Oxen were preferred over horses for ploughing. Orchards were recorded in Chester in the 16th century; the designation of the three royal hunting forests of Mara and Mondrem and Wirral, which at their height covered around 40% of the county slowed agricultural development within their boundaries. The rise in population during the 12th and 13th centuries created a need for increased agricultural output, trees were cleared in the forests and marsh reclaimed for use as arable land. Agricultural efficiency improved during this period with, for example, the practice of applying a clay and lime mixture termed marl as a fertiliser from the early 13th century, earlier than in much of Britain.

Marl pits were common in some parts of the county. Subsistence agriculture was replaced by the trade of surplus produce at local markets and fairs. By the early 14th century, cattle were recorded straying in the hunting forests, beef was exported from the county. There are records of dairy herds, for example in the mid-14th century. Large numbers of pigs were fed on acorns and nuts in the forests and woodland by right of pannage on payment of a fine, pork was exported from the county in the 13th and 14th centuries. Although the