The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. Its invention gave rise to the cap lock mechanism or percussion lock system which used percussion caps struck by the hammer to set off the gunpowder charge in  rifles and cap and ball firearms. Any firearm using a caplock mechanism is a percussion gun. Any long gun with a cap-lock mechanism and rifled barrel is a percussion rifle. Cap and ball describes cap-lock firearms discharging a single bore-diameter spherical bullet with each shot.

Description

The percussion cap is a small cylinder of copper or brass with one closed end. Inside the closed end is a small amount of a shock-sensitive explosive material such as mercuric fulminate (discovered in 1800; it was the only practical detonator used from about the mid-19th century to the early 20th century).

The caplock mechanism consists of a hammer and a nipple (sometimes referred to as a cone). The nipple contains a hollow conduit which goes into the rearmost part of the gun barrel, and the percussion cap is placed over the nipple hole. Pulling the trigger releases the hammer, which strikes the percussion cap against the nipple (which serves as an anvil), crushes it and detonates the mercury fulminate inside, which releases sparks that travel through the hollow nipple into the barrel and ignite the main powder charge.

Percussion caps have been made in small sizes for pistols and larger sizes for rifles and muskets.

Origins
Earlier firearms used flintlock mechanisms causing a piece of flint to strike a steel frizzen producing sparks to ignite a pan of priming powder and thereby fire the gun's main powder charge. The flintlock mechanism replaced older ignition systems such as the matchlock and wheellock, but all were prone to misfire in wet weather.

The discovery of fulminates was made by Edward Charles Howard (1774–1816) in 1800. The invention that made the percussion cap possible using the recently discovered fulminates was patented by the Reverend Alexander John Forsyth of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1807. The rudimentary percussion system was invented by Forsyth as a solution to the problem that birds would startle when smoke puffed from the powder pan of his flintlock shotgun, giving them sufficient warning to escape the shot. This early percussion lock system operated in a nearly identical fashion to flintlock firearms and used a fulminating primer made of fulminate of mercury, chlorate of potash, sulphur and charcoal, ignited by concussion. His invention of a fulminate-primed firing mechanism deprived the birds of their early warning system, both by avoiding the initial puff of smoke from the flintlock powder pan, as well as shortening the interval between the trigger pull and the shot leaving the muzzle. Forsyth patented his "scent bottle" ignition system in 1807. However, it was not until after Forsyth's patents expired that the conventional percussion cap system was developed. Joseph Manton invented a precursor to the percussion cap in 1814, comprising a copper tube that detonated when crushed. This was further developed in 1822 by the English-born American artist Joshua Shaw, as a copper cup filled with fulminates.

The first purpose-built caplock guns were fowling pieces commissioned by sportsmen in Regency era England. Due to the mechanism's compactness and superior reliability compared to the flintlock, gunsmiths were able to manufacture pistols and long guns with two barrels. Early caplock handguns with two or more barrels and a single lock are known as turn-over or twister pistols, due to the need to manually rotate the second barrel to align with the hammer. With the addition of a third barrel, and a ratchet to mechanically turn the barrels while cocking the hammer, these caplock pistols evolved into the pepper-box revolver during the 1830s.

The caplock offered many improvements over the flintlock. The caplock was easier and quicker to load, more resilient to weather conditions, and far more reliable than the flintlock. Many of the older flintlock weapons were later converted to the caplock, so that they could take advantage of these features.

Parallel developments
Joshua Shaw is sometimes credited (primarily by himself) with the development of the first metallic percussion cap in 1814, a reusable one made of iron, then a disposable pewter one in 1815 and finally a copper one in 1816. There is no independent proof of this since Shaw was advised he could not patent it due to Alexander Forsyth's patent for using fulminates to ignite guns being in force between 1807 and 1821. Shaw says he only shared the development of his innovation with a few associates (gunmakers and others) who were sworn to secrecy and never provided affidavits at a later date. Shaw's claim to have been the inventor remains clouded in controversy as he did not patent the idea until 1822, having moved to America in 1817. According to Lewis Winant, the US government's decision to award Shaw $25,000 as compensation for his invention being used by the Army was a mistake. Congress believed Shaw's patent was the earliest in the world and awarded him a large sum of money based on this belief. The investigators had overlooked two French patents and the earlier use of the idea in Britain.

The earliest known patent anywhere in the world which specifically mentions a percussion cap and nipple was granted in France on 29th July 1818 to François Prélat, four years before Shaw's patent. Prelat made a habit of copying English patents and inventions and the mode of operation he describes is flawed. Secondly a French patent of a percussion cap and nipple had been granted in 1820 to Deboubert. However predating both of these French claims, the most likely inventor of the percussion cap, according to historian Sidney James Gooding, was Joseph Egg (nephew of Durs Egg), around 1817, .

There were other earlier claims. Col. Peter Hawker in 1830 simultaneously claimed and denied being the inventor. "I do not wish to say I was the inventor of it - very probably not" but then immediately recounts that he came up with the idea of simplifying a Manton patch-lock, which could be troublesome, by designing a cap and nipple arrangement around 1816 when the patch lock was patented. He says he then presented a drawing to a reluctant Joseph Manton to make a few copper cap guns which were then sold. Hawker, seems to give Joseph Manton more of the glory eight years later in the 1838 edition of his 'Instructions to young Sportsmen',  by stating categorically that "copper tubes and primers were decidedly invented by Joe Manton". By the 1850s Hawker was again claiming the invention for himself in his press advertisements.

Despite many years of research by Winant, Gooding and De Witt Bailey, the jury is still out as the competing claims are based on personal accounts and have little or no independently verifiable evidence.

While the metal percussion cap was the most popular and widely used type of primer, their small size made them difficult to handle under the stress of combat or while riding a horse. Accordingly, several manufacturers developed alternative, "auto-priming" systems. The "Maynard tape primer", for example, used a roll of paper "caps" much like today's toy cap gun. The Maynard tape primer was fitted to some firearms used in the mid-nineteenth century and a few saw brief use in the American Civil War. Other disc or pellet-type primers held a supply of tiny fulminate detonator discs in a small magazine. Cocking the hammer automatically advanced a disc into position.  However, these automatic feed systems were difficult to make with the manufacturing systems in the early and mid-nineteenth century and generated more problems than they solved.  They were quickly shelved in favor of a single percussion cap that, while unwieldy in some conditions, could be carried in sufficient quantities to make up for occasionally dropping one, while a jammed tape primer system would instead reduce the rifle to an awkward club.

Military firearms
This invention was gradually improved, and came to be used, first in a steel cap and then in a copper cap, by various gunmakers and private individuals before coming into general military use nearly thirty years later. The alteration of the military flintlock to the percussion musket was easily accomplished by replacing the powder pan and steel frizzen with a nipple and by replacing the cock or hammer that held the flint by a smaller hammer formed with a hollow made to fit around the nipple when released by the trigger. On the nipple was placed the copper cap containing Shaw's detonating composition of three parts of chlorate of potash, two of fulminate of mercury and one of powdered glass. The hollow in the hammer contained the fragments of the cap if it fragmented, reducing the risk of injury to the firer's eyes. From the 1820s onwards, the armies of Britain, France, Russia, and America began converting their muskets to the new percussion system. Caplocks were generally applied to the British military musket (the Brown Bess) in 1842, a quarter of a century after the invention of percussion powder and after an elaborate government test at Woolwich in 1834. The first percussion firearm produced for the US military was the percussion carbine version (c.1833) of the M1819 Hall rifle. The Americans' breech loading caplock Hall rifles, muzzle loading rifled muskets and Colt Dragoon revolvers gave them an advantage over the smoothbore flintlock Brown Bess muskets used by Santa Anna's troops during the Mexican War. In Japan, matchlock pistols and muskets were converted to percussion from the 1850s onwards, and new guns based on  existing designs were manufactured as caplocks.

The Austrians instead used a variant of Manton's tube lock in their Augustin musket until the conventional caplock Lorenz rifle was introduced in 1855. The first practical solution for the problem of handling percussion caps in battle was the Prussian 1841 (Dreyse needle gun), which used a long needle to penetrate a paper cartridge filled with black powder and strike the percussion cap that was fastened to the base of the bullet. While it had a number of problems, it was widely used by the Prussians and other German states in the mid-nineteenth century and was a major factor in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. The needle gun originally fired paper cartridges containing a bullet, powder charge and percussion cap, but by the time of the Franco-Prussian War this had evolved into modern brass ammunition.

Later firearms evolution
The percussion cap brought about the invention of the modern cartridge case and made possible the general adoption of the breech-loading principle for all varieties of rifles, shotguns and pistols. After the American Civil War, Britain, France, and America began converting existing caplock guns to accept brass rimfire and centrefire cartridges. For muskets such as the 1853 Enfield and 1861 Springfield, this involved installing a firing pin in place of the nipple, and a trapdoor in the breech to accept the new bullets. Examples include the Trapdoor Springfield, Tabatière rifle, Westley Richards and Snider–Enfield conversions. The British Army used Snider Enfields contemporaneously with the Martini–Henry rifle until the .303 bolt action Lee–Metford repeating rifle was introduced in the 1880s. Later, military surplus Sniders were purchased as hunting and defensive weapons by British colonists and trusted local natives.

Caplock revolvers such as the Colt Navy and Remington were also widely converted during the late 19th century, by replacing the existing cylinder with one designed for modern ammunition. These were used extensively by the Turks in the Russo-Turkish War, the US Cavalry during the Indian Wars, and also by gunfighters, lawmen, and outlaws in the old west.

In the 1840s and 1850s, the percussion cap was first integrated into a metallic cartridge, where the bullet is held in by the casing, the casing is filled with gunpowder, and a primer is placed on the end. By the 1860s and 1870s, breech-loading metallic cartridges had made the percussion cap system obsolete.

Today, reproduction percussion firearms are popular for recreational shooters and percussion caps are still available (though some modern muzzleloaders use shotshell primers instead of caps). Most percussion caps now use non-corrosive compounds such as lead styphnate.

Other uses
Caps are used in cartridges, grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and rescue flares. Percussion caps are also used in land mine fuzes, booby-trap firing devices and anti-handling devices. Most purpose-made military booby-trap firing devices contain some form of spring-loaded firing pin designed to strike a percussion cap connected to a detonator at one end. The detonator is inserted into an explosive charge—e.g., C-4 or a block of TNT. Triggering the booby-trap (e.g., by pulling on a trip-wire) releases the cocked firing pin that flips forward to strike the percussion cap, firing it and the attached detonator; the shock-wave from the detonator sets off the main explosive charge.

See also
 Arquebus
 Cap gun
 Internal ballistics
 Minié ball
 Nipple wrench
 Primer (firearms)
 Tubes and primers for ammunition

Citations

Bibliography
 Winant, L. (1956). Early percussion firearms. Bonanza Books

External links
 How percussion caps work

19th-century inventions
Ammunition
Detonators
Early modern firearms
Firearm actions
Mechanisms (engineering)
Scottish inventions
Western (genre) staples and terminology

Percussion cap


Andrei Mihailov (born October 31, 1980) is a Moldovan former swimmer, who specialized in backstroke events. He is a two-time Olympian (2000 and 2004) and a member of the Moldova Swimming Team.

Mihailov's Olympic debut came at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Swimming in heat one of the men's 200 m backstroke, he edged out Bulgaria's Ivan Angelov to take a second spot and thirty-eighth overall by 0.63 of a second in 2:06.67.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Mihailov qualified again for the 200 m backstroke. He cleared a FINA B-standard entry time of 2:06.12 from the Russian Open Championships in Moscow. Swimming in the same heat as Sydney, he raced again to second place by 0.68 of a second behind Finland's Matti Mäki in 2:06.97. Mihailov failed to advance into the semifinals, as he placed thirty-fourth overall in the preliminaries.

References

1980 births
Living people
Moldovan male backstroke swimmers
Olympic swimmers for Moldova
Swimmers at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Swimmers at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Sportspeople from Tiraspol

Andrei Mihailov


The cinema of Mauritius does not have a long-established and continuous tradition and organization. However, there have been recent efforts to encourage international filmmakers to shoot on the island and establish an indigenous film industry. Both Western and Indian movies are watched by Mauritians.

Movie audiences in Mauritius
Movies are predominantly broadcast in French, with some in English or Indian languages. In 2006, Bénarès, directed and written by Barlen Pyamootoo, became the first film in Mauritian Creole.

The Star Cinema within the Bagatelle Mall of Mauritius contains six screens, with a total seating capacity of 1,200. Other movie theaters include the Cine Klassic Movie Theater and Cinema Star at the Caudon Waterfront, and Cinema ABC in Rose Hill.

Filmmaking in Mauritius
Filmmaking in Mauritius started with "sporadic attempts at making home movies in the 1950s".
In 1986 a Mauritius Film Development Corporation (MFDC) was established, under the aegis of the Ministry of Arts and Culture, to encourage the development of a film industry in Mauritius. The MFDC helped foreign directors obtain permits to shoot on the island. The popularity of the Bollywood movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, filmed in Mauritius in 1997, prompted other Bollywood producers to take advantage of the island's scenery. However, for a long time the MFDC lacked the organizational stability to provide consistent support for local filmmakers. In 2007, the Île Courts International Short Film Festival was established, run by the non-profit organization Porteurs d'Images. In 2013, a Film Rebate Scheme was established to provide both local and international filmmakers with a financial incentive to shoot on the island, and the terms of the rebate were extended in 2016. In October 2017, the Government initiated a Mauritius Cinema Week, and a second edition of the event was held in 2018.

References

Cinema of Mauritius


The Reverend W. H. Thornton (1830-1916)

Became the first vicar of the parish of Exmoor, Somerset, England in 1856. Exmoor was 18,810 acres and had not had a spiritual leader because the population was too small. By 1856, the population had expanded to give the area parish status.

Married Grace Anne Furnival in 1857

Brought William Burgess to justice for the murder of Anna Burgess, his daughter, in 1858. This followed a chase on horseback from Somerset into Wales.

Moved as rector, to Dunsford, Devon, England in 1860

Became rector of North Bovey in Devon in 1866 and served there for 50 years.

Chased a fraudster to France in 1867, caught him and recovered £40,000 for the church

Died in 1916 and is buried, alongside his wife, in North Bovey churchyard.

Early life
William Henry Thornton was born, 9th March 1830. His father was head of the tax department Somerset house and they lived in Clapham Common, London. Educated at Rugby school, where one day, in 1847, following a cross country run to the village of Newbold, the seventeen year old Thornton bought some unripe greengages from a street seller and contracted what is believed to be cholera. He was seriously ill for a time, and, upon recovery was found to be "rather delicate". He went to a friend in Allerford village in the Selworthy district of the Porlock valley, Somersetshire, to convalesce. and build up his strength. His life would have included hunting, fishing, shooting and riding (at which he would cover prodigious distances for the rest of his life). He developed a lifelong love for the Porlock Valley, which he called "The happy valley and the fairest and choicest little district which exists on the face of the earth". It was here that he first met Sir Thomas Acland (11th Baronet), from the Holnicote Estate (now owned by the National Trust). He had access to the extensive lands and guns on the estate. He also became a frequent visitor to a house known as Glenthorn, 10 miles away in Countisbury, where he made the acquaintance, and later, friendship of the Knight family from Simonsbath, on Exmoor. It was at this time, also, that he made the acquaintance of John "Jack" Russell, the sporting parson, from Swimbridge, Devon, and they remained in touch until Russell's death in 1883. Thornton left the Porlock Valley in 1849 and matriculated to Trinity College Cambridge on 24th January. He entered as a "pensioner" (that is a student without emolument). This meant that he was only able to take an ordinary degree (BA) which he gained in 1853. He was awarded an MA from the same college in 1859.

He left the college in February 1853 although he remained in lodgings in the city. He studied here, for the voluntary theological examination, which he passed in the October. He was ordained at Exeter cathedral in December 1853. He was offered the curacy of Lynton, Devon.  During this time he established an effective school at Countisbury, and taught there himself most mornings. He resigned the curacy after 2 years.

Later life
The population of Simonsbath had expanded due to mining in the area to become the parish of Exmoor. His friend Mr. Knight offered him the living at the newly built church and vicarage in the village. So, in 1856, he became the first vicar of Exmoor.

In 1857 he married Grace Anna Furnival (1826 – 1916). They went on to have 8 daughters, although 2 of these died in infancy and the firstborn is buried in the churchyard at Simonsbath.

Two years into his incumbency on Exmoor the murder of Anna Maria Burgess, aged 6, took place. She died at the hand of her father, William Burgess, who gave out the story that Anna had gone to live with her grandmother in Porlock Weir. Thornton checked with the grandmother, who confirmed that she had not seen the child. Without a body Thornton could prove nothing but Burgess fled and Thornton personally rode into Wales, where he had tracked him down. He brought him back, and had him held in Exford whilst he awaited permission from the authorities to drain the flooded, and defunct, Wheal Eliza mine, a mile and a half along the Barle Valley from Simonsbath village. Local rumour had it that lights had been seen over the mineshaft and sheep-stealers had found an empty grave upon the moor. It took until the October for permission to be granted to pump the shaft and, in the November, a local young man volunteered to be lowered down it. 360 feet down he found a bundle and, when it was recovered to the surface, Thornton unwrapped it to discover the remains of the child. Burgess was tried at Taunton Assizes, found guilty of the murder, and sentenced to hang.
Thornton was his parish priest, and was conscious of his responsibility in that regard, so he visited Burgess in prison and heard his confession.  Burgess then also confessed to being responsible for an arson attack at a local farm some years previously. This had resulted in three deaths. Thornton visited the other two Burgess children, working in service and told them of their sister's death at the hands of their father. He tried to persuade them to see Burgess, but they refused.  Burgess shook his hand before he died.

The remoteness of Simonsbath in mid-Victorian times proved a worry to Grace Thornton, with young daughters, as the nearest medical man was 11 miles away in South Molton, so, in 1860 the family moved south into Devon to take up the living at Dunsford.

He liked the church there very much but they both missed the moorland people and the bracing moorland air. In 1866, having left a second baby girl buried in Dunsford churchyard, they removed to the parish of North Bovey on Dartmoor, Devon, England.

They remained in North Bovey for 50 years. Thornton went on to become Rural dean in 1870, and also held services in other Dartmoor churches, including an open-air one at Postbridge.
In 1867 he chased a fraudster (a trustee of the church) to Paris, France, leaving North Bovey on the Tuesday morning. He took a night boat to Boulogne from London and arrived back at the London solicitor's office on the Thursday morning with the recovered £40,000 in his pocket, and made it home to North Bovey in time for dinner the same evening.

Thornton created his memoirs over a number of years and published 2 volumes privately. Reminiscences of an Old West Country Clergyman volumes 1 and 2 were leather bound hardback books. An edited version of the both was published in paperback in 2010.

He predeceased Grace by a few months in 1916; he died on the 31st of March and she in the December. They are both buried in North Bovey churchyard.

References
Reminiscences of an Old West Country Clergyman. W.H. Thornton, publisher Andrew Iredale, Torquay. Vol 1 (1897) and Vol 2 (1899).
Reminiscences of an Old West Country Clergyman W.H. Thornton edited by Duff Hart-Davis. Excellent Press, 2010
A Filthy Barren Ground - Exmoor in the 1850s. Victor Bonham-Carter.

1830 births
1916 deaths

William Henry Thornton


The Company of Servers (CoS) is a society within the Anglican Communion for lay people whose vocation includes serving at the altar.  It was inaugurated on 24 January 2009 at Southwark Cathedral.

It is formed of many chapters based on diocesan boundaries, with the first chapters being inaugurated in the dioceses of Norwich, Exeter, and Ripon and Leeds.

Each chapter appoints a chaplain who is a member of the Society of Catholic Priests and members of the Company uphold a rule of life which includes:
 centre their spiritual life on the Eucharist, by sharing in the celebration this sacrament on Sundays and Principal Feasts and Principal Holy Days
 devote a period each day to private prayer
 make use, as appropriate and according to conscience, of a spiritual director and the sacrament of reconciliation
 befriend other members of the Company and attend all meetings of their chapter and central festivals, unless prevented by good reason.

References

External links
 Company of Servers

Church of England societies and organisations

Company of Servers


Ker-Xavier Roussel (10 December 1867 – 6 June 1944) was a French painter associated with Les Nabis.

Biography
Born François Xavier Roussel in Lorry-lès-Metz, Moselle in 1867, at age fifteen he studied at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris; alongside his friend Édouard Vuillard, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart. In 1888, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, and soon began frequenting the Académie Julian where Maurice Denis and other students formed the group Les Nabis. In 1899, Roussel, Vuillard, and his close friend, Pierre Bonnard, travelled to Lake Como, Venice, and Milan.  In that year he settled in L'Étang-la-Ville, Yvelines and the subject-matter of his paintings veered towards rural landscapes.

He drew his subject matter from the area around L'Étang-la-Ville and Saint-Tropez, adapting the scenery to Greek mythological episodes depicting women, children, nymphs, centaurs and fauns.  His wife Marie (Vuillard's sister), his daughter Annette, his son Jacques and his grandchildren served as models.  He abandoned the small format pictures typical of the Nabis and created large, brightly coloured paintings in a post-impressionist style.  His paintings celebrated the seasons, abundance, drunkenness, lustful behaviour and dance, the latter influenced by Isadora Duncan. A number of paintings depict voyeuristic mythological and Old Testament episodes; one of his paintings illustrates Stéphane Mallarmé's poem of 1876, L'après-midi d'un faune, in which the faun creeps through rushes to spy on female bathers.

While Roussel expressed erotic joy in his bucolic pictures (the 'glorious blaze of the flesh' ), he also had a melancholy and dark side expressed in dark lithographic illustrations to works by Maurice de Guerin, La Bacchante and Le Centaure.  Between 1914 and 1917 he was admitted to a clinic, suffering from depression.  He produced large numbers of pastels in his final years, between 1930 and 1944, picturing violent death in mythology.

Roussel is known for huge paintings of landscapes decorating public spaces, with others commissioned for private clients.  In 1912 he painted the front curtain of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and in 1937-9 he created a huge eleven-metre panel in the debating chamber at the Palais des Nations (Palace of Nations) in Geneva. In 1926, Ker-Xavier Roussel won the Carnegie Prize for art. His reputation reached a peak in 1936 with a multi-panel scheme for the Palais de Chaillot.

Ker-Xavier Roussel died in 1944 at his home in L'Étang-la-Ville.

Roussel is mentioned in Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Chapter 3. There she recounts an exchange he had with Theodore Duret in Vollard's shop at an uncertain date after 1904. Roussel complained of the lack of recognition that he and the other Nabi painters had to contend with. Duret consoled him by pointing out his incompatibility with the manners and fashions of the bourgeois world and the differences between "art" and "official art".

In 2019 he was rescued from the near oblivion into which he has generally fallen in modern times by a comprehensive exhibition, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Private Garden, Dreamed Garden at the Musée des Impressionnismes, Giverny.

Selected paintings

References
 Frèches-Thory, Claire, & Perucchi-Petry, Ursula, ed.: Die Nabis: Propheten der Moderne, Kunsthaus Zürich & Grand Palais, Paris & Prestel, Munich 1993   (German), (French)

External links

 Paintings by Ker-Xavier Roussel @ WikiLivres
Pierre Bonnard, the Graphic Art, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Roussel (see index)

1867 births
1944 deaths
19th-century French painters
French male painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
Les Nabis
Post-impressionist painters
École des Beaux-Arts alumni
Lycée Condorcet alumni
Académie Julian alumni
19th-century French male artists

Ker-Xavier Roussel


Major Sir Hamish Stewart Forbes, 7th Baronet, MBE, MC, KStJ (15 February 1916 – 3 September 2007) was a British Army officer who served in the Welsh Guards in World War II, spending over five years in German custody as a prisoner of war. In later life, he was patron of the Lonach Highland and Friendly Society from 1984 until his death.

Early life
Forbes was born in London. He was the second son of Lieutenant Colonel James Forbes and his wife, Feridah Taylor. He was educated at Eton College, at Lawrenceville School in the United States, and at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Before World War II, he worked for health salts manufacturer Eno and for sugar broker Czarnikow.

Military career
Forbes was commissioned as a subaltern in the 1st Welsh Guards in 1939.  After a short period in Gibraltar, he served as battalion intelligence officer in the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940. Leading a reconnaissance patrol near Arras in May 1940, he was captured by the Germans. He was later awarded the Military Cross for his conduct.

He was held in a series of German prisoner-of-war camps until the end of the war, but was involved in at least 10 attempts to escape from the four prisoner of war camps in which he was detained. He and six others escaped from Oflag IX-A/Z at Rotenburg. He was quickly recaptured and jailed. He was involved in three attempts to escape from Oflag VII-C at Laufen, and three further attempts at Oflag VI-B at Dössel (now part of Warburg).

He was moved to Oflag VII-B at Eichstätt then back to Oflag IX-A/Z, where another escape bought him eight days of liberty. Recaptured and marched west with other prisoners to prevent being released by the advancing Red Army, he slipped out of the column and managed to reach forward units of the advancing First United States Army, and was quickly returned to England.

His escape attempts led to a mention in dispatches in 1945, upgraded to an MBE (Military Division).

He continued to serve in the Welsh Guards after the war, in England, Germany and with CENTO forces in Turkey. He retired from the Army as a major in 1958.

Later life
After leaving the British Army, he worked for Calmic Chemicals, Gillette and Shell-Mex & BP until 1964. He was also an amateur painter and sculptor. He retired to Strathdon in Aberdeenshire.

Affiliations
He was secretary of the Order of St John from 1973 to 1983, and president of the Church Lads' and Church Girls' Brigade Association from 1974 to 2000. He succeeded his third cousin, Colonel Sir John Stewart Forbes, to be the 7th Baronet in 1984, and also became patron of the Lonach Highland Society that year.

The Society was founded in 1822 by his ancestor Sir Charles Forbes, the 1st Baronet, to preserve and promote Highland culture and the Scottish Gaelic language.

Personal life
He married twice. He married Jacynthe Underwood in 1945, and they had a son and three daughters. They divorced in 1981. He remarried later that same year, to Mary Christine Rigby (MBE).

Death
He died in Aberdeen, Scotland and was survived by his second wife, and son and daughters from his first marriage. His son, James, succeeded him as 8th Baronet.

References

Sources
Obituary, The Times, 20 September 2007
Obituary, The Herald, 20 September 2007
 Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 28 September 2007
Obituary, The Herald, 6 September 2007

1916 births
2007 deaths
Hamish
Welsh Guards officers
British Army personnel of World War II
World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
People educated at Eton College
Members of the Order of the British Empire
Recipients of the Military Cross
Knights of the Order of St John
Lawrenceville School alumni
People from Strathdon

Hamish Forbes


Camillo Ballin (June 24, 1944 – April 12, 2020) was an Italian Roman Catholic bishop, writer, missionary, and educator. He was the Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Apostolic Vicariate of Northern Arabia from 2001 until his death. He was born in Padua, Italy.

Ballin died on April 12, 2020 at the age of 75.

References

Other websites
 EWTN Interview with Bishop Camillo Ballin -- Apostolic Vicar of Northern Arabia March 5, 2014
 Interview with H.E. Mgr Camillo Ballin. May 2009. Oasis. Accessed on 22 April 2010.
 Vicariate Apostolic of Northern Arabia

1944 births
2020 deaths
Italian Roman Catholic bishops
Italian writers
Italian educators

Camillo Ballin


Lipophilic efficiency (LiPE), sometimes referred to as ligand-lipophilicity efficiency (LLE) is a parameter used in drug design and drug discovery  to evaluate the quality of research compounds, linking potency and lipophilicity in an attempt to estimate druglikeness. For a given compound LiPE is defined as the pIC50 (or pEC50) of interest minus the LogP of the compound.

In practice, calculated values such as cLogP or calculated LogD are often used instead of the measured LogP or LogD. LiPE is used to compare compounds of different potencies (pIC50s) and lipophilicities (LogP). High potency (high value of pIC50) is a desirable attribute in drug candidates, as it reduces the risk of non-specific, off-target pharmacology at a given concentration. When associated with low clearance, high potency also allows for low total dose, which lowers the risk of idiosyncratic drug reaction.

On the other hand, LogP is an estimate of a compound's overall lipophilicity, a value that influence its behavior in a range of biological processes relevant to a drug discovery, such as solubility, permeability through biological membranes, hepatic clearance, lack of selectivity and non-specific toxicity. For oral drugs, a LogP value comprised between 2 and 3 is often considered optimal to achieve a compromise between permeability and first-pass clearance.

LiPE allows capturing both values in a single parameter, and empirical evidence suggest that quality drug candidates have a high LiPE (>6); this value corresponds to a compound with a pIC50 of 8 and a LogP of 2. Plotting LogP against pIC50 for a range of compounds allows ranking series and individual compounds.

An alternative equation uses the logarithm of the ratio of potency (measured as binding energy) and the partition coefficient to compute a lipophilic ligand efficiency index (LE) with a different scale.

The following review discusses LipE in the context of other compound efficiency metrics.

References

Drug discovery
Pharmacokinetics
Medicinal chemistry

Lipophilic efficiency


Mahendradatta (961—1011 CE), also known as Gunapriya Dharmapatni, was the queen of Bali, the queen consort of Udayana Warmadewa, also popularly known as King Udayana from Warmadewa dynasty. She was also the mother of Javanese hero-king Airlangga. Her other younger sons are Marakata (later become king of Bali after the death of Udayana) and Anak Wungçu (ascend to Balinese throne after the death of Marakata).

Early life
Gunapriyadharmapatni was born in 961 and growing up in Watugaluh palace, Eastern Java. She was a Javanese princess of Eastern Javanese Isyana Dynasty, the daughter of king Sri Makutawangsawarddhana of late Mataram Kingdom period. She was the sister of King Dharmawangsa of Mataram. She was later betrothed to Balinese king Udayana, and moved to the island as a queen consort and assumed the name Mahendradatta.

Marriage and reign
Her powerful position as the princess of ruling Mataram Kingdom has led the historian to suggests that actually Mahendradatta was the queen regnant in Bali. Her marriage to Mataram's vassal, the Balinese Warmadewa family was a political arrangement to seal Bali as part of Eastern Javanese Mataram realm. Her position as powerful foreign queen has led the Balinese court to carefully respect, revered or even fear her.

She conceived her first son, Airlangga, in her 30s, quite late of age for women in ancient Java and Bali. However, there is a speculation suggesting that Mahendradatta was probably already married prior to Udayana. Thus Airlangga was not the biological son of king Udayana, he was conceived from her previous union to an unknown man, that after her separation (either because of death or divorce) she was later betrothed to the Balinese king, and she took the baby Airlangga to Bali. Historical sources seems to be silenced on Mahendradatta's suspected earlier marriage, that it might be a scandal or not even took place. This suspicion was because although Airlangga was the eldest son of Mahendradatta, curiously he was not chosen as the crown prince of Bali, his younger brother Marakata and later Anak Wungçu rose to Balinese throne instead. Moreover, Mahendradatta sent Airlangga back to Java during his teenage. Mahendradatta was known to be promoting the cult of Durga in Bali, and curiously later associated with Balinese legend of evil witch Rangda, which translates to "widow".

The Balinese folklore more or less mentioning the life story of Mahendradatta that linked with Balinese mythology of Rangda. The story goes that the queen was condemned and exiled by the king for allegedly practicing witchcraft and black magic. After she became a widow, hurt and humiliated, she sought revenge upon her ex-husband's court and the whole of his kingdom. She summoned all the evil spirits in the jungle, the  and the demons that caused plague and death in the kingdom. She proceeded to take her revenge by killing off half the kingdom with plague before being overcome by a holy man. Her seemingly bad image in Balinese folklore was probably a reflection of her actual life that her marriage run bad, or motivated by Balinese court politics to discredit the ruling foreign Javanese queen. Her marriage probably was not a smooth one, that the queen was up against the court of Balinese Warmadewa and her own husband.

Religious adherent
Mahendradatta is known for her devotion to Durga. She was believed to bring the cult of Durga to Bali from Java. Although Durga is known as consort of Shiva, in ancient Javanese and Balinese traditions, Durga is depicted of having fierce nature, in contrast to another shakti; the benevolent Vishnu's consort Lakshmi. The cult of Durga is traditionally linked with sacrifice, black magic and witchcraft. This led to the unpopular depiction of her, that later associated with Rangda, the evil witch in Balinese mythology.

After her death in 1011 CE, she was deified and depicted as Durga Mahisashuramardini (Durga as the slayer of Bull-demon), entombed in the temple within Pura Bukit Dharma Kutri, located in Buruan village, Blahbatu, Gianyar Regency, Bali. Within this Balinese temple compound, exist several Hindu-Buddhist statues dated from around 10th to 13th century. Those include, but not limited to the depictions of Amoghapasa, Ganesha, Bhatara, Durga  Mahisasuramardhini, and Buddha.

Notes

References
 Willard A. Hanna (2004). Bali Chronicles. Periplus, Singapore. .

961 births
1011 deaths
History of Bali
Monarchs of Bali
10th-century Indonesian women
11th-century women rulers
Deified women
11th-century Indonesian women

Mahendradatta


Flavio Boltro (born May 5, 1961) is an Italian trumpet and flugelhorn jazz player.

Career

Flavio Boltro started playing trumpet at age nine and then entered the Turin school of Classical Music "G.Verdi".  During his seven years at the school, he studied classical trumpet, especially with Carlo Arfinengo, trumpet player of Turin's Symphonic Orchestra

From 1982 to 1985, he played regularly with Turin's Symphonic Orchestra and the RAI Symphonic Orchestra (Italian TV network). He began these first jazz gigs with Steve Grossman, Cedar Walton and Billy Higgins in several clubs and major festivals.
From 1984 to 1986, he participated in the "Lingomania Quintet" of Maurizio Giammarco, with Roberto Gatto on drums, Furio Di Castri on bass, Maurizio Giammarco on sax and Umberto Fiorentino on guitar (Reverberi CD). In 1986, the Italian newspaper " Musica Jazz" gave him the award of "Best musician" of the year. From this time, he played with legendary musicians as Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Jordan, Jimmy Cobb, Bob Berg, Dave Liebman, Don Cherry. In 1987 another jazz band is decisive in his musical career : the original trio with Manu Roche on drums and Furio Di Castri on bass which is converted in quartet with the venue of Joe Lovano (Imagine CD). In 1992, he released his first album as a leader: Flabula.

In 1994, Boltro and his friend Stefano di Battista (saxophonist) entered the French Orchestre National de Jazz conducted by Laurent Cugny. From 1996 to 2000, Michel Petrucciani engaged Boltro in his sextet. In 1997, Boltro participated at the quintet Di Battista/Boltro with Eric Legnini on piano, Benjamin Henocq on drums and Rosario Bonaccorso on bass.

In 2000, he entered the quintet of the avant-gardist Michel Portal up to 2005. He also played with Laurent de Wilde. He released two CDs as a leader via Blue Note Records (EMI): Road Runner in 1999 and 40 degrés in 2003. Also in 2003, he participated at TRIO AIR with Giovanni Mirabassi on piano and Glen Ferris on trombone. Their album won the 2003 Album of the Year from the French Académie du Jazz.

From 2005 to 2009, he played in Italian saxophonist Rosario Giuliani's quintet including their album, Anything Else (Dreyfus). Since 2007, he played aside Italian singer Gino Paoli's band. They released Milestones (Blue Note, 2007). A second project Un Incontro in Jazz (Parco della musica, 2011) contains original compositions. In 2008, he created a quartet with Giovanni Mazzarino (piano), Marco Mitchelli (bass) and Francesco Sotgiu (drums).

In 2011, the German label, ACT Music, released Opera at Schloss Elmau, in which Boltro and the Italian pianist Danilo Rea play arias from the Italian Opera. In 2012, Boltro released Joyful with a new quintet : Rosario Giuliani (sax), Pietro Lussu (piano), André Ceccarelli (drums) and Darryl Hall (bass).

Discography

 1987 – Immagini – Trio Boltro, Dicastri, Roche
 1987 – Into the Blue – Flavio Boltro quintet (Red Records)
 1991 – Flabula – Flavio Boltro Trio
 1999 – Roadrunner – Flavio Boltro quartet (Blue Note Records)
 2003 – 40° – Flavio Boltro quartet (Blue Note Records)
 2003 – AIR – Trio Giovanni Mirabassi, Flavio Boltro, Glenn Ferris (Sketch)
 2005 – Trumpet Legacy – Fabrizio Bosso & Flavio Boltro 5et (Soundhills)
 2009 – Casa del Jazz di Roma – Flavio Boltro 4et (L'Espresso-La Rebublica)
 2011 – Opera at Schloss Elmau – Duo Danilo Rea/Flavio Boltro – (Act Music)
 2012 – Joyful – (Bonsaï Music)

References

External links
 https://www.facebook.com/official.flavioboltro

1961 births
20th-century Italian musicians
20th-century Italian male musicians
20th-century trumpeters
21st-century Italian musicians
21st-century Italian male musicians
21st-century trumpeters
Blue Note Records artists
Flugelhorn players
Italian jazz trumpeters
Living people
Male jazz musicians
Male trumpeters
Orchestre National de Jazz members
ACT Music artists

Flavio Boltro