title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The stigmata were the first material evidence of supernatural phenomena that happened with Benedetta. Her heavenly grace had been quickly recognized, and sometime between February and May 1619, the nuns' community elected her to be their abbess.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: During the Lenten season of that year, Ricordati was regularly visiting the convent to hear Benedetta give sermons to the other nuns while they purified themselves with their whips as part of their penance. As she talked to them, she was always in a trance and spoke, not as herself, but as an angel who persuaded the nuns to lead a better life. This angel usually ended the sermons by praising Benedetta, chosen above all others to receive the signs of God's grace. Had Benedetta not been in an altered state of consciousness, Paolo Ricordati would not have allowed her to give sermons because "it is shameful for a woman" to speak in a Christian church, even for an abbess. But if a woman had been favoured with the gift of prophecy of other divine gifts, she could be an exception.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: On March 21, 1619, Paolo Ricordati summoned Benedetta and told her: "Today is the day of St. Benedict, your saint's day, go in ecstasy at your pleasure, I give you permission."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: It was an experiment to examine if her visions would come on command. That evening, during compline, Benedetta fell into a trance. Then at night, Benedetta experienced a new miracle that she had never had before. She saw Christ looking like a handsome young man with long hair and a long red robe. He was accompanied by St. Catherine of Siena and other figures.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Benedetta turned to Bartolomea, saying: "I don't know if it is the devil's work; pray to God for me. If it is the devil's work, I will make the sign of the cross on my heart, and he will disappear."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The young man explained that he was Jesus and had come to Benedetta to take her heart. She laughed, "What would you do, my Jesus! You have come to take my heart, but I don't want to do it without the permission of my Spiritual Father."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The young man reminded her that the confessor had said she could do anything that was God's will without any reservations. Benedetta supported that Jesus had taken her heart and returned three days after to put another heart in her body.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: By his miraculous power, it was possible to live so long without a heart. Bartolomea later said that when she was helping Benedetta with her blankets, she came up to her and felt her chest around where her heart should be, and felt a void.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: To maintain Benedetta's physical purity, Jesus ordered her not to eat meat, eggs, and milk products and not to drink anything but water. To maintain her spiritual purity, he assigned her a guardian angel, Splenditello, to point out her falling when she did something wrong.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: This angel appeared as a beautiful boy dressed in a white robe crowned by a wreath of flowers. In his hand, he held a green wand, about two feet long, on one side of which were flowers, and on the other thorns. The flowers were for when she did things that were pleasing to Jesus, the thorns were to punish her when she did not. And she felt pain if she did something wrong, because Splenditello touched her with the thorny side of a wand. Receiving corporal punishment from an angel and such intensive purification of the body was very unusual for Catholic nuns and saints.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Once settled in their new quarters, the Theatines began the final round of administrative procedures to become a regular convent. In 1619, they asked Pope Paul V to grant them complete enclosure. When the papal officials who handled such petitions received the request, they asked the provost of Pescia to send in a report about them.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: On 20 May 1619, Jesus appeared to Benedetta in vision and announced that he wanted to marry her in a solemn ceremony a week later.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: He issued detailed instructions on the decoration for the chapel. The upper part of the altar should be covered with light blue cloth, the right side with red cloth and the other two sides in green. The floor also should be covered: images of Christ and Madonna, flowers of all sorts and colours, three chairs and 12 pillows must be there.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: All nuns in the house would be at the ceremony with lighted candles and then this Jesus will say them through Benedetta's lips what to do and where to go.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Benedetta doubted if this was genuine Jesus or some diabolic illusion and hesitated to tell Father Ricordati all the details of her vision, but three days later she revealed it. She wondered about the public nature of the event, and the work it required because Jesus didn't usually reveal himself in such a public fashion. But Ricordati unexpectedly let her proceed and other nuns had already started to decorate the convent because, in one of her recent ecstasies, Benedetta had spoken of the impending marriage and possibly couldn't remember this in the normal state of conscience.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Because the community did not have a whole set of things needed for a solemn mystical marriage ceremony, they sent a servant off to borrow the altar cloth from several people outside the convent. They asked some of the religious institutions in the vicinity to contribute candles and solicited the pillows and flowers from various other quarters.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The candles were sent by the Fathers of Holy Annunciation, by the convent of Santa Maria Nuova and by people of the mountain country. Baskets of flowers arrived from everywhere. The tree chairs came from the Prior of Pescia.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Nuns had received so many gifts that they didn't know what to do with all of them. Word of what was happening spread and many people wanted to participate, but no one, not even Father Ricordati, was allowed by the provost to enter the convent during the preparation or the ceremony itself.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: On the morning of Holy Trinity (27 May 1619), Benedetta heard an inner voice telling her that she should dress the two novices as angels. She quickly wrote a note to Father Ricordati to obtain his permission. This done, she and the others went to Choir, where she picked up a basket of flowers, scattered its content throughout and then lit the candles, giving one to each. Benedetta instructed nuns to get on their knees and to do as she told. Taking up the crucifix, she began to intone "Veni Creator Spiritus" as she led a procession out of the choir, onto the garden, and then back around the choir where all of them sang various hymns and the litanies to the Virgin. After scattering incense and bowing several times in the direction of the altar, Benedetta knelt and resumed singing by herself. Her voice was scarcely audible and her words could not be made out.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Then Benedetta had a new vision of Jesus, so bright and beautiful she could hardly look at him. And he said: "Rejoice, today I will marry you." Next came the Madonna with a retinue of angels and saints. Benedetta replied that she did not want to consent, as she was not sure whether he was Jesus or the devil. "I am not the devil, but your Jesus," he answered, "give me your hand because I want to put the ring on you." Benedetta said: "But Jesus, I am not worthy." The Madonna then took her right hand, and Jesus placed the ring on her finger. Benedetta kissed the ring. Jesus told her that no one else would see the ring but her. Then this supernatural man, invisible for all but Benedetta, made a whole sermon and represented her as his bride and servant, who is the greatest that he has in the world, and told all to obey her. Benedetta spoke in a tone that seemed to the other nuns more beautiful than her usual voice.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: After this sermon, Benedetta had returned to her normal senses and began to leave the choir, almost as if nothing had happened. Along the way, she stopped to chat with the wife of the Vicar who, in defiance of the provost's orders, had come to the convent to witness the wedding.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Some other participants of the event were in doubt about this possible wonder. No one other than Benedetta had seen Jesus, the Madonna, the saints or the ring. They knew that St. Catherine's marriage with Christ had left no visible evidence too, but the desire for publicity was unusual for a true mystic and seemed suspicious, especially if other people there didn't see any supernatural person or objects.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Benedetta's contemporaries were well aware that because women were denied a place in the social and public discourse of their age, they thought to make their voices heard in other ways. Having religious visions was one way women could have their voices heard. For example, Maria de la Visitación, the nun from Lisbon, also had the stigmata and became one of the most influential European women of the 1580s, consulted by rulers and high church officials, before she was discovered to be a fraud. It has been suggested that such could be the case with Benedetta.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Not only the nuns of the Congregation of the Mother of God were concerned about Benedetta's religious experience, but also the leading ecclesiastical official in the town - provost of Pescia Stefano Cecchi, and Pescian secular authorities. Speaking through Benedetta, Jesus had said extravagant words of praise for her and the threat for damnation for those who did not believe in her. And he said that the fate of the townspeople was in Benedetta's hands. Such behaviour was not characteristic of holy people, whose messages from the divine contained praises of the Lord rather than themselves and who gained followers by their character and deportment rather than by threats. As the wedding preparations had already demonstrated, despite the provost's feeble efforts to curb any publicity about the affair, many people had become interested in Benedetta's mystical powers. Citizens not well-informed about religion were very inclined to believe in the unproven miracles. And the situation might get out of control of ecclesiastical and secular authorities.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: So provost Stefano Cecchi ordered all those who had witnessed the mystical marriage of Benedetta and Christ to talk no further about this with outsiders. On 28 May 1619, the day after this ceremony, he came to examine Benedetta himself. Benedetta was relieved of her duties as abbess until further notice, and Felice di Giovanni Guerrini came to this duties.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Firstly Stefano Cecchi had examined the stigmata of Benedetta Carlini since they were the only visible signs of miraculous intervention. Christ had said during Benedetta's sermon of the previous day that the wounds on her body would be open and larger in appearance than before. The provost, therefore, looked at her hands, feet, and side, where he could see bits of dried blood about the size of a small coin. When they were washed with warm water, each revealed a small opening from which drops of fresh blood trickled out. When the blood was dried with a towel, more came out. On Benedetta's head were many bloody marks, which also bled into the towel when washed with warm water. The stigmata, which day ago had been nothing more than small red marks, had changed just as Christ predicted. Then the provost asked Benedetta to recount how wounds came to be on her body. She told about five rays from the crucifixion in her vision during Lent and about that she felt pain not all time: "On Sundays, they seem to be numb; on Mondays and Tuesdays I have almost no pain; and all the other days I have great pain, especially on Fridays."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: After the first visit of the provost, Benedetta went into the trance and wrote two letters: to Ricordati and Cecchi. But after the trance, she could remember only former, in which she asked her father confessor for permission to write directly to the provost or meet with him. Ricordati denied her request because if Christ wanted to communicate with the provost, he would find other means for doing so. But then Ricordati forwarded to Cecchi the letter that Benedetta had written to himself. Benedetta did not know about this, and when Cecchi came again on 7 June 1619 and asked her what she wanted to tell him, she seemed nonplussed and had nothing to say. The provost had examined Benedetta's stigmata again and saw a few changes. The wound on the right hand did not bleed when washed and dried with a towel. The puncture marks on the head were also dried and looked partly healed. The provost was perplexed, but there was nothing to be done, and the visit came to an end. Then he had been visited and examined Benedetta fourteen times between late May and early September.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: On June 14, the observation of stigmata revealed that some of the wounds that had almost healed the week before were now bleeding again. The provost ordered Benedetta to cut her hair and wash her head to make the wounds more visible. Benedetta was allowed to leave the room briefly to rearrange and close her garments before returning for further questioning. Suddenly she run back in, holding her hands to her head. "Jesus, what is this?" she exclaimed as blood gushed down her face and onto the floor. The visitors managed to staunch the blood with towels. But the examination had to be cut because Benedetta was in too much pain to continue. But this was not the end of the investigation, just a postponement.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: In June 1619, Benedetta revealed to Father Ricordati that she had again seen Jesus in a vision. This time he was an angry and vengeful Christ with an unsheathed sword ready to strike. And he threatened to punish the people of Pescia with the plague for their grievous sins while no one was willing to ask for mercy. Benedetta offered to pray for his mercy herself and to be the instrument of the town's salvation by spending her time in Purgatory until the day of judgment. Christ's anger seemed to be appeased by her words. He told her to continue to love him always and to arrange for processions to placate him. Ricordati gave her permission to organize a procession with an image of Christ at the head.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: On July 23, Cecchi met with Felice di Giovanni Guerrini, Bartolomea Crivelli and with another nun, Margherita d'Iptolito Ricordati, a relative to Paolo Ricordati. Their testimonies did not result in any major new revelations. The main obstacle to officially sanctioned public recognition was the absence of a ring on Benedetta's finger. Other nuns were unable to see it because she always covered up that hand. But Margherita Ricordati said that she saw a yellow band with a cross that didn't look like a ring. When Benedetta was called to the examination room, she had an ordinary, inexpensive gold ring on the fourth finger of her right hand. On the top side of a ring, there were five points the size of ordinary pinheads. A point in the middle was dark red. The ecclesiastical examiners were eager to probe further, but Benedetta was feeling too ill to answer.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Finally, the provost of Pescia Stefano Checchi and other investigators had concluded that Benedetta's visions were genuine visions and neither dreams nor fantasies, and their religious content conformed to church dogma and practice. So Benedetta had been recognized as a true visionary.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The provost must have written favourably since in July 1620, he and the Vicar of Pescia made one last visit to the convent to conclude the enclosure. On July 28, Pope issued the bull that made this female religious community a fully enclosed convent. According to the nuns' wishes, it was called the Congregation of the Mother of God and would be under the protection of St. Catherine of Siena. No longer would they have to go outside their convent to hear Mass, but more importantly, as nuns, their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience would become solemn vows. Any nun wishing to leave the convent could be constrained to stay by her superiors and by the secular authorities. Similarly, any laypersons trying to enter the convent without permission could also be punished. After the convent was granted full enclosure, Benedetta was reinstated as abbess.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: There is little information available about the next several years of Benedetta's life. It seems that she managed successfully her abbess' duties. When the nuns were cloistered and could not leave the convent area even for a short time, a board of outside administrators had been established in the fall of 1620 to aid Benedetta with some of her tasks. Members of the board helped to manage the convent's properties and to market its silk and agricultural products.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Benedetta's father, Guiliano, died between November 1620 and March 1621. Soon after that, when Benedetta went into her trances, one of her guardian angels, Tesauriello Fiorito, began to prophesize her imminent death. He would urge the nuns to treat their abbess with greater tenderness than before because her days on earth were numbered. And only after her death would they realize her true value because there was no one else in the convent as fit to be their abbess as she. After this vision, Benedetta herself began to speak about her death and even had her grave opened and readied for the day when it would be needed.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: On the day of Annunciation (25 of March 1621), the nuns witnessed Benedetta's death and called Paolo Ricordati. He arrived immediately and commanded Benedetta in a loud voice to return to the living, which, to everyone's astonishment, had the desired effect. When Benedetta revived, she told the assembled that she had seen angels and demons, Purgatory and Paradise, her father and several other deceased people.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Sometime between August 1622 and March 1623, Alfonso Giglioli, a newly appointed papal nuncio in Florence, decided to re-investigate Benedetta's case and sent several of his officials. These investigators were more sceptical than previous. Unlike the Theatine nuns, Paolo Ricordati, or Stefano Cecchi, they had nothing to gain from Benedetta's claims.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The doubts of the investigators about the reported miracles and visions were strengthened by their interpretation of Benedetta's character. Her mystical experiences contained immodest and lascivious language. Her so-called angels bore peculiar names - Splenditello, Tesauriello Fiorito, Virtudioello, and Radicello. These sounded more like the names of evil spirits than of heavenly creatures. Investigators did not find in Carlini charity, humility, patience, obedience, modesty, and other virtues to the eminent and heroic degree which usually accompany the true spirit of God. She lacked the extraordinary personal virtues that would make her a role model for other good Christians. New investigators found contradictions in Benedetta's visions. For example, in one of them, the Virgin had asked her to obtain permission from Father Ricordati to have a guardian angel but, before this request, such an angel had already appeared in her early visions. It was obvious to all that God neither lied nor was ever contrary to himself. And even Benedetta's visible stigmata could be not the marks of Christ but of the devil because these appeared not during the fervor of prayer, in the harshness of the wilderness, or during a long period of solitude, but when she lying softly in bed where the enemy of God resides.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Further doubts were cast on the divinity of Benedetta's mystical exchange of hearts with Christ and marriage with him, regarding Benedetta's need for help from Bartolomea to complete this wonder. And the solemn public ceremony of marriage with Christ seemed too suspicious. Investigators believed that Christ might need the publicity of it only for a demonstration of a miracle to the people. But none were seen until two months later, when a rather shabby looking ring, not nearly as beautiful and brilliant as one Benedetta had described, appeared on her right hand.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Also, investigators discovered that Benedetta likely had a hereditary demonic obsession. Both her parents had allegedly been possessed for some time. Despite the seeming aversion to the meat and milk products, Benedetta was secretly fetching salami and Cremonese style mortadella to where she could eat them undisturbed. But one time, another nun saw it. This was like Benedetta's father's behavior when he "too was assailed by spirits". Testimonies of other nuns made it clear that some of Benedetta's supernatural phenomena were falsifications. Two nuns spied on Benedetta through the hole in her study door and more than twenty times saw her renewing her wounds with a large needle. Another nun had seen her put her blood on a statue of Christ, which Benedetta then claimed began to bleed in honour of her sanctity. Other witnesses saw that she had made the star herself with some gold foil and fixed it on her forehead with red wax. And Benedetta said that Christ kissed her forehead and left a gold star. When she spoke as an angel in one of her ecstasies, that the Theatines could learn from her how to flagellate themselves with true spiritual fervour. The nun, who had been standing nearby, noticed that Benedetta didn't strike herself even once, and that to make it seem as though she had she smeared the whip with blood from her wounds in her hand. Three nuns also reported that she sometimes ran barefoot through the convent as if her feet were healed, and one heard her exclaim as she jumped down from a small table, "Whoever saw me jump down would say that there's nothing wrong with my feet."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Bartolomea gave more testimonies. She eventually found a small brass box containing diluted saffron in Benedetta's desk. This saffron and Benedetta's blood probably had been used to paint the ring. But the most shocking confession was about the lesbian relationships between Bartolomea and Benedetta. As investigators reported, "This sister Benedetta, then, for two continuous years, at least three times a week, in the evening after disrobing and going to bed would wait for her companion to disrobe, and pretending to need her, would call. When Bartolomea would come over, Benedetta would grab her by the arm and throw her by force on the bed. Embracing her, she would put her under herself and kissing her as if she was a man, she would speak words of love to her. And she would stir on top of her so much that both of them corrupted themselves. And thus by force she held her sometimes one, sometimes two, and sometimes three hours". And "Benedetta would tell her that neither she nor Benedetta were sinning because it was the Angel Splenditello and not she that did these things. And she spoke always with the voice which Splenditello always spoke through Benedetta. . . ." Benedetta refused to admit that she had engaged in sexual acts and claimed she could not remember what she did when Splenditello spoke and acted through her.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The investigators were not prepared for such things because in Italy and Europe in the 17th century were very few documented cases of sexual relationships between women, and much more cases of heterosexual fornication between a nun and her male lover and cases of male homosexuality. Yet that two women should seek sexual gratification with each other was virtually inconceivable despite such cases had been described in the legal commentaries of Antonio Gomez, Gregorio Lopez and Prospero Farinacci, which had been printed and widely circulated throughout Italy in the previous decades.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The second investigation had been completed on November 5, 1623, when the clerics submitted their "Last Report" to the nuncio. Then they saw no traces of the stigmata and the ring on Benedetta's body. And when she was asked about angels, visions, apparitions, revelation and ecstasies, Benedetta answered that she no longer saw any of them. She was not an abbess anymore and lived the life of an obedient nun under the care of a new abbess. The investigators concluded that "all the things that were done in her or by her, not only those which are deemed sinful, but also the other deeds which were held to be supernatural and miraculous were done without her consent or her will, since they were done while she was out of her senses by the work of the devil." Also, they concluded that the ineptness of Paolo Ricordati was a crucial factor in allowing the situation to continue as long as it did. While the ecclesiastical investigators who wrote the last report on Benedetta seemed disposed toward leniency and emphasized her lack of consent and will, the final judgement need not necessarily absolve her from guilt. It would be up to the nuncio to determine in which direction the sentence and punishment would go.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Judith C. Brown could not find any information about the nuncio's decision and further Benedetta's life, except a fragment of diary of a nun, whose name has not come down to us. On August 7, 1661, this nun wrote in her dairy: "Benedetta Carlini died at age 71 of fever and colic pains after eighteen days of illness. She died in penitence, having spent thirty-five years in prison."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: The words in the diary suggest that Benedetta was not imprisoned until 1626, three years after the second investigation. Perhaps the bureaucracy was simply slow. Perhaps authorities had decided not to punish her if she repents and never repeats such claims and deeds, but Benedetta would not or could not live as an ordinary obedient nun. Perhaps secular or ecclesiastical authorities once had recognized Benedetta Carlini as a threat to the established order because she remained popular among the laity and decided to shut her within the walls of the convent. The official decision about Benedetta's imprisonment has not survived.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: We can suppose that the conditions of Benedetta's imprisonment were harsh. Ecclesiastical authorities had adopted "Constitution" by St. Teresa, who stated that sins of the flesh are the gravest of nuns' faults. And the punishment for these sins must be solitary confinement for life. The guilty sister "shall in no case, even though she repent and implore mercy and pardon, be received back into the community, save if some reasonable cause supervene and on the recommendation and advice of the visitor". Other nuns, except wardens, must not speak with the punished one or send her anything under pain of suffering the same penalty. A sister in prison should have her veil and scapular taken away. She should be let out only to hear mass and to follow the other nuns to the place where they disciplined themselves with their whips. On those days, she might be allowed to eat on the floor of the refectory, near the door so that the others might step over her as they left the room. Several times a week, she should receive only bread and water for sustenance.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Word of the death of Benedetta Carlini spread quickly outside the convent walls. People of Pescia did not forget her even forty years after the events that brought her notoriety and thirty-five years of strong social isolation. Perhaps the reason was that her prophetic warnings to those who refused to believe in her had finally come to pass and in 1631 the plague did indeed strike Pescia. And many people had never really believed in the officials' efforts to discredit her miracles. A crowd gathered near the convent's gate. People wanted to see and touch Benedetta's body or even take some of it with them like the relics of a saint. But the nuns barred the doors of the church to avoid any uproar and tumult until the burial. They brought dead Carlini into the church as they do with the other nuns and dressed her with the black veil and habit worn by the others.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Very little information about the later life of Bartolomea Crivelli has come down to us. An unknown nun on 18 September 1660 wrote in the diary: "Sister Bartolomea [blank] died [today?]; when Sister Benedetta Carlini was engaged in those deceits note in this book on page [blank], she was her companion and was always with her. And because of this she experienced many difficulties. . . . In temporal affairs she worked as hard as she could and in spiritual affairs she was very devoted and totally given over to holy prayer." Possibly, Bartolomea had been recognized as an innocent victim of deception and coercion and had not been punished by ecclesiastical or secular authorities. She may have been stigmatized for a time by the other nuns and may have had to endure occasional reminders of her misdeeds, but she appears to have spent her time as an ordinary nun.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: E. Ann Matter, a feminist religious scholar, has an alternative perspective on the case of Benedetta Carlini, and wrote about it in the "Journal of Homosexuality" in 1990. She compared and contrasted two autobiographical accounts from Benedetta Carlini and another 17th-century Italian Catholic mystic, Maria Domitilla Galluzzi of Pavia. Carlini and Galluzi were both self-designated visionaries and highly regarded by their religious and secular communities, but each was subject to suspicion and close scrutiny by church hierarchy. Benedetta Carlini's trial records related the aforementioned series of sexual contacts with Bartolomea, while Maria Domitilla Galluzzi seems to have had no sexual experiences within her own mystical framework. Matter's article questioned whether scholars might have succumbed to the temptation to simply transpose the sexual self-understanding of figures in their own historical context to past historical environments. "Lesbian nun" might be viewed as too simplistic a description, and alongside Maria Galluzzi, Benedetta Carlini's sexuality "might be viewed as organised around an elaborate organic connection between the spiritual and the sensual."


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: However, it might be noted that Matter has written extensively on Galluzzi in other contexts, and Brown's study of Carlini occurs in greater depth than that of her counterpart.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: More recently, Brian Levack has analysed the Carlini case and others in the context of his work on demonic possession and exorcism in the Baroque era of 17th and 18th century Europe. He notes that the case in question was anomalous, as according to Carlini's account, she was possessed by an angelic entity, Splenditello, when she made love to Sister Bartolomea. Levack departs from the above authors in placing the event in philosophical and historical context, noting the rise of nominalism within 17th and 18th century Catholic thought, which attributed greater scope for agency and supernatural activity from demonic entities than had previously been the case. Such signs were described as convulsions, pain, loss of bodily function (and other symptoms that one might describe as apparent epilepsy from this description), levitation, trance experiences, mystical visions, blasphemy, abuse of sacred objects and vomiting of particular objects as well as immoral actions and gestures and exhibitionism. Levack argues that this provided the female subjects of exorcist rituals with the chance to engage in relative social and sexual agency compared to gender role expectations of social passivity. Possession was a form of dramaturgy and religious theatre, Levack argues, as was demonology. According to Levack, then, Carlini and other recorded instances of Baroque possession were engaged as active participants within a social ritual and theatrical performance that reflected contemporary Baroque religious culture.


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Judith C. Brown chronicled her life in "Immodest Acts" (1986), which discussed the events that led to her significance for historians of women's spirituality and lesbianism, while Brian Levack has recently explained the events described as a form of religious theatre and dramaturgy which permitted women greater social and sexual agency than Baroque Catholic religious passivity usually permitted. Canadian playwright and director Rosemary Rowe has written a play about her affair with Sister Bartolomea, "Benedetta Carlini: Lesbian Nun of Renaissance Italy".


title: Benedetta Carlini

text: Paul Verhoeven has directed a film loosely based on Benedetta Carlini called "Benedetta" released in 2021. She is portrayed by Virginie Efira.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Pioneer 10 (originally designated Pioneer F) is an American space probe, launched in 1972 and weighing , that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. Thereafter, "Pioneer 10" became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed to leave the Solar System. This space exploration project was conducted by the NASA Ames Research Center in California. The space probe was manufactured by TRW Inc.


title: Pioneer 10

text: "Pioneer 10" was assembled around a hexagonal bus with a diameter parabolic dish high-gain antenna, and the spacecraft was spin stabilized around the axis of the antenna. Its electric power was supplied by four radioisotope thermoelectric generators that provided a combined 155 watts at launch.


title: Pioneer 10

text: It was launched on March 3, 1972, at 01:49:00 UTC (March 2 local time), by an Atlas-Centaur expendable vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Between July 15, 1972, and February 15, 1973, it became the first spacecraft to traverse the asteroid belt. Photography of Jupiter began November 6, 1973, at a range of , and about 500 images were transmitted. The closest approach to the planet was on December 3, 1973, at a range of . During the mission, the on-board instruments were used to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter, the solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the Solar System and heliosphere.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Radio communications were lost with "Pioneer 10" on January 23, 2003, because of the loss of electric power for its radio transmitter, with the probe at a distance of from Earth.


title: Pioneer 10

text: In the 1960s, American aerospace engineer Gary Flandro of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory conceived of a mission, known as the Planetary Grand Tour, that would exploit a rare alignment of the outer planets of the Solar System. This mission would ultimately be accomplished in the late 1970s by the two Voyager probes, but in order to prepare for it, NASA decided in 1964 to experiment with launching a pair of probes to the outer Solar System. An advocacy group named the Outer Space Panel and chaired by American space scientist James A. Van Allen, worked out the scientific rationale for exploring the outer planets. NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center put together a proposal for a pair of "Galactic Jupiter Probes" that would pass through the asteroid belt and visit Jupiter. These were to be launched in 1972 and 1973 during favorable windows that occurred only a few weeks every 13 months. Launch during other time intervals would have been more costly in terms of propellant requirements.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Approved by NASA in February 1969, the twin spacecraft were designated Pioneer F and Pioneer G before launch; later, they were named "Pioneer 10" and "Pioneer 11". They formed part of the Pioneer program, a series of United States unmanned space missions launched between 1958 and 1978. This model was the first in the series to be designed for exploring the outer Solar System. Based on proposals issued throughout the 1960s, the early mission objectives were to explore the interplanetary medium past the orbit of Mars, study the asteroid belt and assess the possible hazard to spacecraft traveling through the belt, and explore Jupiter and its environment. Later development-stage objectives included the probe closely approaching Jupiter to provide data on the effect the environmental radiation surrounding Jupiter would have on the spacecraft instruments.


title: Pioneer 10

text: More than 150 scientific experiments were proposed for the missions. The experiments to be carried on the spacecraft were selected in a series of planning sessions during the 1960s, then were finalized by early 1970. These would be to perform imaging and polarimetry of Jupiter and several of its satellites, make infrared and ultraviolet observations of Jupiter, detect asteroids and meteoroids, determine the composition of charged particles, and to measure magnetic fields, plasma, cosmic rays and the zodiacal light. Observation of the spacecraft communications as it passed behind Jupiter would allow measurements of the planetary atmosphere, while tracking data would improve estimates of the mass of Jupiter and its moons.


title: Pioneer 10

text: NASA Ames Research Center, rather than Goddard, was selected to manage the project as part of the Pioneer program. The Ames Research Center, under the direction of Charles F. Hall, was chosen because of its previous experience with spin-stabilized spacecraft. The requirements called for a small, lightweight spacecraft which was magnetically clean and which could perform an interplanetary mission. It was to use spacecraft modules that had already been proven in the "Pioneer 6" through "9" missions. Ames commissioned a documentary film by George Van Valkenburg titled "Jupiter Odyssey". It received numerous international awards, and is visible on Van Valkenburg's YouTube channel.


title: Pioneer 10

text: In February 1970, Ames awarded a combined US$380 million contract to TRW Inc. for building both of the "Pioneer 10" and "11" vehicles, bypassing the usual bidding process to save time. B. J. O'Brien and Herb Lassen led the TRW team that assembled the spacecraft. Design and construction of the spacecraft required an estimated 25 million man-hours. An engineer from TRW said "This spacecraft is guaranteed for two years of interplanetary flight. If any component fails within that warranty period, just return the spacecraft to our shop and we will repair it free of charge."


title: Pioneer 10

text: To meet the schedule, the first launch would need to take place between February 29 and March 17 so that it could arrive at Jupiter in November 1974. This was later revised to an arrival date of December 1973 in order to avoid conflicts with other missions over the use of the Deep Space Network for communications, and to miss the period when Earth and Jupiter would be at opposite sides of the Sun. The encounter trajectory for "Pioneer 10" was selected to maximize the information returned about the radiation environment around Jupiter, even if this caused damage to some systems. It would come within about three times the radius of the planet, which was thought to be the closest it could approach and still survive the radiation. The trajectory chosen would give the spacecraft a good view of the sunlit side.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The "Pioneer 10" bus measures deep and with six long panels forming the hexagonal structure. The bus houses propellant to control the orientation of the probe and eight of the eleven scientific instruments. The equipment compartment lay within an aluminum honeycomb structure to provide protection from meteoroids. A layer of insulation, consisting of aluminized mylar and kapton blankets, provides passive thermal control. Heat was generated by the dissipation of 70 to 120 watts (W) from the electrical components inside the compartment. The heat range was maintained within the operating limits of the equipment by means of louvers located below the mounting platform. The spacecraft had a launch mass of about .


title: Pioneer 10

text: At launch, the spacecraft carried of liquid hydrazine monopropellant in a diameter spherical tank. Orientation of the spacecraft is maintained with six 4.5 N, hydrazine thrusters mounted in three pairs. Pair one maintained a constant spin-rate of 4.8 rpm, pair two controlled the forward thrust, and pair three controlled the attitude. The attitude pair were used in conical scanning maneuvers to track Earth in its orbit. Orientation information was also provided by a star sensor able to reference Canopus, and two Sun sensors.


title: Pioneer 10

text: "Pioneer 10" uses four SNAP-19 radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). They are positioned on two three-rod trusses, each in length and 120 degrees apart. This was expected to be a safe distance from the sensitive scientific experiments carried on board. Combined, the RTGs provided 155 W at launch, and decayed to 140 W in transit to Jupiter. The spacecraft required 100 W to power all systems. The generators are powered by the radioisotope fuel plutonium-238, which is housed in a multi-layer capsule protected by a graphite heat shield.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The pre-launch requirement for the SNAP-19 was to provide power for two years in space; this was greatly exceeded during the mission. The plutonium-238 has a half-life of 87.74 years, so that after 29 years the radiation being generated by the RTGs was at 80% of its intensity at launch. However, steady deterioration of the thermocouple junctions led to a more rapid decay in electrical power generation, and by 2001 the total power output was 65 W. As a result, later in the mission only selected instruments could be operated at any one time.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The space probe includes a redundant system of transceivers, one attached to the narrow-beam, high-gain antenna, the other to an omni-antenna and medium-gain antenna. The parabolic dish for the high-gain antenna is in diameter and made from an aluminum honeycomb sandwich material. The spacecraft was spun about an axis that is parallel to the axis of this antenna so that it could remain oriented toward the Earth. Each transceiver is an 8 W one and transmits data across the S-band using 2110 MHz for the uplink from Earth and 2292 MHz for the downlink to Earth with the Deep Space Network tracking the signal. Data to be transmitted is passed through a convolutional encoder so that most communication errors could be corrected by the receiving equipment on Earth. The data transmission rate at launch was 256 bit/s, with the rate degrading by about 1.27 millibit/s for each day during the mission.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Much of the computation for the mission is performed on Earth and transmitted to the spacecraft, where it was able to retain in memory up to five commands of the 222 possible entries by ground controllers. The spacecraft includes two command decoders and a command distribution unit, a very limited form of a processor, to direct operations on the spacecraft. This system requires that mission operators prepare commands long in advance of transmitting them to the probe. A data storage unit is included to record up to 6,144 bytes of information gathered by the instruments. The digital telemetry unit is used to prepare the collected data in one of the thirteen possible formats before transmitting it back to Earth.


title: Pioneer 10

text: "Pioneer 10" was launched on March 3, 1972, at 01:49:00 UTC (March 2 local time) by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from Space Launch Complex 36A in Florida, aboard an Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle. The third stage consisted of a solid fuel Star-37E stage (TE-M-364-4) developed specifically for the Pioneer missions. This stage provided about of thrust and spun up the spacecraft. The spacecraft had an initial spin rate of 30 rpm. Twenty minutes following the launch, the vehicle's three booms were extended, which slowed the rotation rate to 4.8 rpm. This rate was maintained throughout the voyage. The launch vehicle accelerated the probe for net interval of 17 minutes, reaching a velocity of .


title: Pioneer 10

text: After the high-gain antenna was contacted, several of the instruments were activated for testing while the spacecraft was moving through the Earth's radiation belts. Ninety minutes after launch, the spacecraft reached interplanetary space. "Pioneer 10" passed by the Moon in 11 hours and became the fastest human-made object at that time. Two days after launch, the scientific instruments were turned on, beginning with the cosmic ray telescope. After ten days, all of the instruments were active.


title: Pioneer 10

text: During the first seven months of the journey, the spacecraft made three course corrections. The on-board instruments underwent checkouts, with the photometers examining Jupiter and the Zodiacal light, and experiment packages being used to measure cosmic rays, magnetic fields and the solar wind. The only anomaly during this interval was the failure of the Canopus sensor, which instead required the spacecraft to maintain its orientation using the two Sun sensors.


title: Pioneer 10

text: While passing through interplanetary medium, "Pioneer 10" became the first mission to detect interplanetary atoms of helium. It also observed high-energy ions of aluminum and sodium in the solar wind. The spacecraft recorded important heliophysics data in early August 1972 by registering a solar shock wave when it was at a distance of . On July 15, 1972, "Pioneer 10" was the first spacecraft to enter the asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The project planners expected a safe passage through the belt, and the closest the trajectory would take the spacecraft to any of the known asteroids was . One of the nearest approaches was to the asteroid 307 Nike on December 2, 1972.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The on-board experiments demonstrated a deficiency of particles below a micrometer (μm) in the belt, as compared to the vicinity of the Earth. The density of dust particles between 10 and 100 μm did not vary significantly during the trip from the Earth to the outer edge of the belt. Only for particles with a diameter of 100 μm to 1.0 mm did the density show an increase, by a factor of three in the region of the belt. No fragments larger than a millimeter were observed in the belt, indicating these are likely rare; certainly much less common than anticipated. As the spacecraft did not collide with any particles of substantial size, it passed safely through the belt, emerging on the other side about February 15, 1973.


title: Pioneer 10

text: On November 6, 1973, the "Pioneer 10" spacecraft was at a distance of from Jupiter. Testing of the imaging system began, and the data were successfully received back at the Deep Space Network. A series of 16,000 commands were then uploaded to the spacecraft to control the flyby operations during the next sixty days. The orbit of the outer moon Sinope was crossed on November 8. The bow shock of Jupiter's magnetosphere was reached on November 16, as indicated by a drop in the velocity of the solar wind from to . The magnetopause was passed through a day later. The spacecraft instruments confirmed that the magnetic field of Jupiter was inverted compared to that of Earth. By the 29th, the orbits of all of the outermost moons had been passed and the spacecraft was operating flawlessly.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Red and blue pictures of Jupiter were being generated by the imaging photopolarimeter as the rotation of the spacecraft carried the instrument's field of view past the planet. These red and blue colors were combined to produce a synthetic green image, allowing a three-color combination to produce the rendered image. On November 26, a total of twelve such images were received back on Earth. By December 2, the image quality exceeded the best images made from Earth. These were being displayed in real-time back on Earth, and the Pioneer program would later receive an Emmy award for this presentation to the media. The motion of the spacecraft produced geometric distortions that later had to be corrected by computer processing. During the encounter, a total of more than 500 images were transmitted.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The trajectory of the spacecraft took it along the magnetic equator of Jupiter, where the ion radiation was concentrated. Peak flux for this electron radiation is 10,000 times stronger than the maximum radiation around the Earth. Starting on December 3, the radiation around Jupiter caused false commands to be generated. Most of these were corrected by contingency commands, but an image of Io and a few close-ups of Jupiter were lost. Similar false commands would be generated on the way out from the planet. Nonetheless, "Pioneer 10" did succeed in obtaining images of the moons Ganymede and Europa. The image of Ganymede showed low albedo features in the center and near the south pole, while the north pole appeared brighter. Europa was too far away to obtain a detailed image, although some albedo features were apparent.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The trajectory of "Pioneer 10" was chosen to take it behind Io, allowing the refractive effect of the moon's atmosphere on the radio transmissions to be measured. This demonstrated that the ionosphere of the moon was about above the surface of the day side, and the density ranged from 60,000 electrons per cubic centimeter on the dayside, down to 9,000 on the night face. An unexpected discovery was that Io was orbiting within a cloud of hydrogen that extended for about , with a width and height of . A smaller, cloud was believed to have been detected near Europa.


title: Pioneer 10

text: It was not until after "Pioneer 10" had cleared the asteroid belt that NASA selected a trajectory towards Jupiter that offered the slingshot effect that would send the spacecraft out of the Solar System. "Pioneer 10" was the first spacecraft to attempt such a maneuver and became a proof of concept for the missions that would follow. Such an extended mission was not originally something that was planned, but was planned for prior to launch.


title: Pioneer 10

text: At the closest approach, the velocity of the spacecraft reached , and it came within of the outer atmosphere of Jupiter. Close-up images of the Great Red Spot and the terminator were obtained. Communication with the spacecraft then ceased as it passed behind the planet. The radio occultation data allowed the temperature structure of the outer atmosphere to be measured, showing a temperature inversion between the altitudes with 10 and 100 mbar pressures. Temperatures at the 10 mbar level ranged from , while temperatures at the 100 mbar level were . The spacecraft generated an infrared map of the planet, which confirmed the idea that the planet radiated more heat than it received from the Sun.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Crescent images of the planet were then returned as "Pioneer 10" moved away from the planet. As the spacecraft headed outward, it again passed the bow shock of Jupiter's magnetosphere. As this front is constantly shifting in space because of dynamic interaction with the solar wind, the vehicle crossed the bow shock a total of 17 times before it escaped completely.


title: Pioneer 10

text: "Pioneer 10" crossed the orbit of Saturn in 1976 and the orbit of Uranus in 1979. On June 13, 1983, the craft crossed the orbit of Neptune, at that time the outermost planet, and so became the first human-made object to leave the proximity of the major planets of the Solar System. The mission came to an official end on March 31, 1997, when it had reached a distance of from the Sun, though the spacecraft was still able to transmit coherent data after this date.


title: Pioneer 10

text: After March 31, 1997, "Pioneer 10"'s weak signal continued to be tracked by the Deep Space Network to aid the training of flight controllers in the process of acquiring deep-space radio signals. There was an Advanced Concepts study applying chaos theory to extract coherent data from the fading signal.


title: Pioneer 10

text: The last successful reception of telemetry was received from "Pioneer 10" on April 27, 2002; subsequent signals were barely strong enough to detect and provided no usable data. The final, very weak signal from "Pioneer 10" was received on January 23, 2003, when it was from Earth. Further attempts to contact the spacecraft were unsuccessful. A final attempt was made on the evening of March 4, 2006, the last time the antenna would be correctly aligned with Earth. No response was received from "Pioneer 10". NASA decided that the RTG units had probably fallen below the power threshold needed to operate the transmitter. Hence, no further attempts at contact were made.


title: Pioneer 10

text: On January 3, 2019, "Pioneer 10" was predicted to be from the Earth, and traveling at (relative to the Sun) and traveling outward at about per year. "Voyager 2" is expected to pass "Pioneer 10" around April 2023. Sunlight takes 14.79 hours to reach "Pioneer 10". The brightness of the Sun from the spacecraft is magnitude −16.3. "Pioneer 10" is currently in the direction of the constellation Taurus.


title: Pioneer 10

text: If left undisturbed, "Pioneer 10" and its sister craft "Pioneer 11" will join the two Voyager spacecraft and the "New Horizons" spacecraft in leaving the Solar System to wander the interstellar medium. The "Pioneer 10" trajectory is expected to take it in the general direction of the star Aldebaran, currently located at a distance of about 68 light years. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would require more than two million years for the spacecraft to reach it. Well before that, in about 90,000 years, "Pioneer 10" will pass about from the late K-type star HIP 117795. This is the closest stellar flyby in the next few million years of all the four Pioneer and Voyager spacecrafts, which are leaving the Solar System.


title: Pioneer 10

text: A backup unit, "Pioneer H", is currently on display in the "Milestones of Flight" gallery at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Many elements of the mission proved to be critical in the planning of the Voyager program.


title: Pioneer 10

text: Because it was strongly advocated by Carl Sagan, "Pioneer 10" and "Pioneer 11" carry a gold-anodized aluminum plaque in case either spacecraft is ever found by intelligent life-forms from another planetary system. The plaques feature the nude figures of a human male and female along with several symbols that are designed to provide information about the origin of the spacecraft. The plaque is attached to the antenna support struts to provide some shielding from interstellar dust.


title: Special Protection Group

text: The Special Protection Group (SPG) is an agency of the Government of India whose sole responsibility is protecting the Prime Minister of India and in some cases, his or her family. It was formed in 1988 by an Act of the Parliament of India. The SPG protects the Prime Minister at all times both in India and abroad, as well as the Prime Minister's immediate family members residing with them at their official residence. Family members, however, may decline security.


title: Special Protection Group

text: Previously, the SPG's mandate included protecting the Prime Minister's "parents, wife "(sic)" and children" resident anywhere in India during their term of office and for five years after leaving office. However, the Special Protection Group (Amendment) Act, 2019 reduced such mandate. Presently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only SPG protectee.


title: Special Protection Group

text: Before 1981, the security of the Prime Minister at their official residence was the responsibility of the Special Security District of the Delhi Police, overseen by an officer of the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). This model was adopted from the United Kingdom, where the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is protected by London's Metropolitan Police Service. In October 1981, a Special Task Force (STF) was established by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to provide transportation security and road escorts for Prime Minister during travels in and out of New Delhi.


title: Special Protection Group

text: After the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two of her Delhi Police security personnel in October 1984, a review was undertaken by a Committee of Secretaries of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Given the breach, it was decided to entrust security of the Prime Minister to an exclusive unit under direct control of the STF to provide the Prime Minister with proximate security at all times. These decisions were initially taken as short-term measures.


title: Special Protection Group

text: On 18 February 1985, the Ministry of Home Affairs set up the "Birbal Nath Committee" to examine the issue and submit recommendations to the government for prime ministerial security. In March 1985, the Committee submitted its recommendation for the raising of an independent agency for prime ministerial protection, known as the Special Protection Unit (SPU). On 30 March 1985, the President of India, by executive order, created 819 posts for the unit within the Cabinet Secretariat. The name of the unit was re-christened "Special Protection Group," led by a Director who would be an Indian Police Service officer with the rank of Inspector General of Police.


title: Special Protection Group

text: S. Subramaniam, then the Joint Director (VIP Security) in the Intelligence Bureau, assumed office as the first Director of the SPG. Initially, the establishment of the SPG necessitated a new distribution of responsibility to various agencies concerned with the security of the Prime Minister. With 819 posts, the new agency lacked the manpower to provide complete protection to the Prime Minister's person, office, residence and dependents, and remained dependent on the Delhi Police and state police units for logistics and transportation. The "Blue Book", an existing manual for the protection of the Prime Minister, was amended to incorporate new proximate security protocols.


title: Special Protection Group

text: Under the new arrangements, on domestic visits, the Intelligence Bureau and concerned State Police were responsible for coordination, collection and dissemination of intelligence affecting the Prime Minister's security. State Police and the SPG would then provide physical security arrangements for the Prime Minister in two-layers. The SPG operated under the authority of its constituting executive order for three years without legislation, from April 1985 to June 1988. That year, the Rajiv Gandhi Government passed the Special Protection Group Act to codify the order's provisions.


title: Special Protection Group

text: At the time, the Act only permitted security for the Prime Minister and his immediate relatives. When Rajiv Gandhi left office in 1989, he ceased to receive SPG protection as Leader of the Opposition. This occurred despite the significant threat to his life following his government's military intervention in the Sri Lankan Civil War. In May 1991, Gandhi was assassinated at a political rally in Tamil Nadu by a suicide bomber of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Sri Lankan terrorist organization. After his assassination, the "SPG Act" was amended to provide SPG security to former Prime Ministers and their immediate families for a period of ten years after leaving office. Prior to the end of this period, a security review would be conducted by the IB to determine a protectee's current threat and the need for extensions (which would last five years). For this reason, Gandhi's widow, Sonia Gandhi, and her children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi received SPG protection for 28 years (until 2019) owing to their political activity in the Indian National Congress.


title: Special Protection Group

text: On 27 November 2019, the Parliament of India passed the Special Protection Group (Amendment Act), 2019 which limited SPG protection only to the PM and his immediate family members residing with him at his official residence. Under the amended legislation, former Prime Ministers are eligible for an extension of their protection for up to five years after leaving office, subject to a threat assessment by the Intelligence Bureau. The bill was opposed by the Indian National Congress, fearing that the Gandhi Family would face a greater risk of violence without SPG protection. After its passage, these individuals, along with former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Heeraben Modi and Jashodaben Modi, the mother and estranged wife, respectively, of incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi, lost SPG protection. They were instead accorded different levels of security ranging from Z+ to Y by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The bill reduced the SPG's legal protectees to Modi, who lives alone at his official residence.


title: Special Protection Group

text: The Director is assisted by number of Deputy Directors, Assistant Directors, Joint Assistant Directors. The SPG is divided broadly into the following four categories:


title: Special Protection Group

text: The "general superintendence, direction and control" of the SPG is exercised by the Government of India. The head of the force, the Director, formally serves as the Joint Secretary (Security) in the Cabinet Secretariat and is responsible for "the command and supervision" of the force. The director of the SPG since its inception has been an officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) and, today, holds the rank of Director General of Police.


title: Special Protection Group

text: The SPG does not directly recruit personnel. Recruits are instead drawn from enlisted ranks of the Central Armed Police Forces and Railway Protection Force. Personnel from these services may apply for deputation to the SPG and undergo rigorous physical and psychological assessments as well as enhanced security screening. Deputation to the SPG usually lasts five years, but may be extended at the Director's discretion. Officers of the SPG, responsible for leadership and coordination, are drawn from the IPS.


title: Special Protection Group

text: Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister of India, is currently the only person under SPG protection. Sonia Gandhi and her children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, as well as her two children (Raihan and Miraya) were granted SPG protection for 28 years from 1991 to 2019. Two of their family members, former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, were assassinated in 1984 and 1991, respectively, with the Government of India assessing a continued threat to their safety. On 8 November 2019, the Government of India withdrew their SPG security details and accorded them with Z+ Security. This decision followed the government's withdrawal of an SPG detail for Modi's predecessor, Manmohan Singh.


title: Special Protection Group

text: Additionally, under terms of the Special Protection Group (Amendment) Act, 2019, SPG security details for Modi's estranged wife, Jashodaben, and mother, Heeraben, were withdrawn that same year. The Act amended the SPG's legal mandate to protect the incumbent Prime Minister's "parents, wife and children" to "immediate family members residing (with the Prime Minister) at his official residence."


title: Special Protection Group

text: SPG protectees, by law, are exempt from personal security screening at all airports in India and may access VIP lounges at airports operated by the Airports Authority of India. Additionally, they are exempt from security screening when entering certain official buildings, including the Prime Minister's Office and Residence.


title: Special Protection Group

text: The Prime Minister's motorcade comprises a fleet of vehicles, the core of which consists of at least two Mercedes-Maybach S650 guard ,three armored BMW 7 Series sedans, four armored Range Rovers, at least 8-10 BMW X5s, six Toyota Fortuners/Land Cruisers and at least two Mercedes-Benz Sprinter ambulances. A Tata Safari Electronic Countermeasures car also accompanies the convoy, besides many more escort vehicles.


title: Special Protection Group

text: These customized armoured variants of the standard 2015 BMW 760Li long-wheelbase sedan are used to transport the Prime Minister. They are certified with VR7 in the BRV 2009 ballistics protection ratings, and can defend occupants from anything between landmine blasts and machine-gun fire. Security upgrades include undercarriage armour, 76 mm (3 in) thick multi-layer laminated glass and armour plating on the doors, roof, body pillars, front footwell and rear bulkhead. They have run-flat tyres which can run deflated for kilometers. The cars are fitted with advanced heat sensors to ward off missiles and bombs. While the fuel tanks are Kevlar-sealed so as not to explode during an attack, their cabins also turn into gas-proof chambers and ensure fresh oxygen supply to secure the occupants in cases of chemical and biological attacks. Other rumoured features include an intercom system between the passengers and the driver, an alarm, a fire extinguisher with temperature sensor, irritant gas sensors (to warn of dangerous gasses in the passenger area), and a compartment for two machine guns in the center console. Due to the added weight of the security upgrades, suspension components such as the shock absorbers and strut tops are upgraded as compared to a normal 760Li.


title: Special Protection Group

text: For official movement, the Indian flag is fender-mounted on the driver's side of the vehicles, and if taken abroad, the flag of the foreign country is fender-mounted on the passenger's side.


title: Special Protection Group

text: These armoured variants of the standard wheelbase 2016 Range Rover Autobiography SUV are used as backup to the BMW 760Li sedans for transportation of the Prime Minister. If not being used by the Prime Minister himself/herself, they are used to transport members of the Prime Minister's immediate family accompanying him/her as part of the motorcade. These SUVs are armoured by Land Rover's Special Vehicle Operations facility in Coventry, England, and are certified with VR8 in the BRV 2009 ballistics protection ratings. They can withstand some of the most damaging and targeted of threats, including penetration by 7.62mm high velocity armour piercing incendiary bullets, they can protect occupants against up to 15 kg lateral Trinitrotoluene (TNT) blasts and defend against DM51 grenade explosions from both beneath the floor and above the sunroof. Run-flat tyres allow the vehicle to be driven even if the tyres are deflated. The chassis is reinforced with super-high-strength steel, and the standard glass has been replaced by multi-laminated armoured privacy glass of optical quality. The suspension is upgraded as compared to the standard Range Rover, while an anti-tamper exhaust, self-sealing fuel tank, auxiliary back-up battery and split-charging battery system provide added protection and security.


title: Special Protection Group

text: Just like the BMW 760Li's, the Indian flag is fender-mounted on the driver's side of the vehicles. However, these SUVs, even if taken abroad, do not bear the flag of the foreign country, and will instead have the Indian flag itself or a flag with the State Emblem of India fender-mounted on the passenger's side.


title: Special Protection Group

text: These SUVs carry the SPG Special Agents and Uniformed Officers assigned to the Prime Ministerial Security Detail. At least 8 BMW X5s, 6 Fortuners and 2 Land Cruisers accompany the motorcade at all times. The X5s in particular are armoured to VR6 in the BRV 2009 ratings, but the protection levels on the Toyota SUVs are undisclosed.


title: Special Protection Group

text: These are armoured tactical medical support vehicles to the Prime Minister, at least two of which are always spotted to the rear of the motorcade. They carry at least a litre of the Prime Minister's blood type, for emergency transfusions.


title: Special Protection Group

text: This vehicle is used to counter guided attacks, such as IEDs, Rocket Propelled Grenades, and Anti-Tank Guided Missiles. The antennas mounted on the roof are used in barrage jamming applications and for scouting purposes, the primary method used to counter IED threats. The antenna configuration can be changed according to threat level, for instance, taller antennas are used to increase the jamming protection distance, or change jamming frequency ranges. There are two dome-shaped EW Sensors. The EW sensors are millimetre-wave radars used to detect the launch of an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenades) or laser range finder illumination and launch of an Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM).


title: Special Protection Group

text: Members of the SPG are barred by the SPG Act from contact with the media or from publishing or collaborating in the publication of "any book, letter or other document" related to their work, including upon retirement from government service. The SPG and its personnel are exempt from any information disclosure requests under the Right to Information Act, 2005.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: In computer science, a semaphore is a variable or abstract data type used to control access to a common resource by multiple threads and avoid critical section problems in a concurrent system such as a multitasking operating system. Semaphores are a type of synchronization primitive. A trivial semaphore is a plain variable that is changed (for example, incremented or decremented, or toggled) depending on programmer-defined conditions.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: A useful way to think of a semaphore as used in a real-world system is as a record of how many units of a particular resource are available, coupled with operations to adjust that record "safely" (i.e., to avoid race conditions) as units are acquired or become free, and, if necessary, wait until a unit of the resource becomes available.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Semaphores are a useful tool in the prevention of race conditions; however, their use is not a guarantee that a program is free from these problems. Semaphores which allow an arbitrary resource count are called counting semaphores, while semaphores which are restricted to the values 0 and 1 (or locked/unlocked, unavailable/available) are called binary semaphores and are used to implement locks.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The semaphore concept was invented by Dutch computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra in 1962 or 1963, when Dijkstra and his team were developing an operating system for the Electrologica X8. That system eventually became known as THE multiprogramming system.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Suppose a library has 10 identical study rooms, to be used by one student at a time. Students must request a room from the front desk if they wish to use a study room. If no rooms are free, students wait at the desk until someone relinquishes a room. When a student has finished using a room, the student must return to the desk and indicate that one room has become free.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: In the simplest implementation, the clerk at the front desk knows only the number of free rooms available, which they only know correctly if all of the students actually use their room while they have signed up for them and return them when they're done. When a student requests a room, the clerk decreases this number. When a student releases a room, the clerk increases this number. The room can be used for as long as desired, and so it is not possible to book rooms ahead of time.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: In this scenario the front desk count-holder represents a counting semaphore, the rooms are the resource, and the students represent processes/threads. The value of the semaphore in this scenario is initially 10, with all rooms empty. When a student requests a room, they are granted access, and the value of the semaphore is changed to 9. After the next student comes, it drops to 8, then 7 and so on. If someone requests a room and the current value of the semaphore is 0, they are forced to wait until a room is freed (when the count is increased from 0). If one of the rooms was released, but there are several students waiting, then any method can be used to select the one who will occupy the room (like FIFO or randomly picking one). And of course, a student needs to inform the clerk about releasing their room only after really leaving it, otherwise, there can be an awkward situation when such student is in the process of leaving the room (they are packing their textbooks, etc.) and another student enters the room before they leave it.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: When used to control access to a pool of resources, a semaphore tracks only "how many" resources are free; it does not keep track of "which" of the resources are free. Some other mechanism (possibly involving more semaphores) may be required to select a particular free resource.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The paradigm is especially powerful because the semaphore count may serve as a useful trigger for a number of different actions. The librarian above may turn the lights off in the study hall when there are no students remaining, or may place a sign that says the rooms are very busy when most of the rooms are occupied.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The success of the protocol requires applications to follow it correctly. Fairness and safety are likely to be compromised (which practically means a program may behave slowly, act erratically, hang or crash) if even a single process acts incorrectly. This includes:


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Even if all processes follow these rules, "multi-resource deadlock" may still occur when there are different resources managed by different semaphores and when processes need to use more than one resource at a time, as illustrated by the dining philosophers problem.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Counting semaphores are equipped with two operations, historically denoted as P and V (see for alternative names). Operation V increments the semaphore "S", and operation P decrements it.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The value of the semaphore "S" is the number of units of the resource that are currently available. The P operation wastes time or sleeps until a resource protected by the semaphore becomes available, at which time the resource is immediately claimed. The V operation is the inverse: it makes a resource available again after the process has finished using it.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: One important property of semaphore "S" is that its value cannot be changed except by using the V and P operations.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Many operating systems provide efficient semaphore primitives that unblock a waiting process when the semaphore is incremented. This means that processes do not waste time checking the semaphore value unnecessarily.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The counting semaphore concept can be extended with the ability to claim or return more than one "unit" from the semaphore, a technique implemented in Unix. The modified V and P operations are as follows, using square brackets to indicate atomic operations, i.e., operations which appear indivisible from the perspective of other processes:


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: However, the remainder of this section refers to semaphores with unary V and P operations, unless otherwise specified.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: To avoid starvation, a semaphore has an associated queue of processes (usually with FIFO semantics). If a process performs a P operation on a semaphore that has the value zero, the process is added to the semaphore's queue and its execution is suspended. When another process increments the semaphore by performing a V operation, and there are processes on the queue, one of them is removed from the queue and resumes execution. When processes have different priorities the queue may be ordered by priority, so that the highest priority process is taken from the queue first.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: If the implementation does not ensure atomicity of the increment, decrement and comparison operations, then there is a risk of increments or decrements being forgotten, or of the semaphore value becoming negative. Atomicity may be achieved by using a machine instruction that is able to read, modify and write the semaphore in a single operation. In the absence of such a hardware instruction, an atomic operation may be synthesized through the use of a software mutual exclusion algorithm. On uniprocessor systems, atomic operations can be ensured by temporarily suspending preemption or disabling hardware interrupts. This approach does not work on multiprocessor systems where it is possible for two programs sharing a semaphore to run on different processors at the same time. To solve this problem in a multiprocessor system a locking variable can be used to control access to the semaphore. The locking variable is manipulated using a test-and-set-lock command.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Consider a variable "A" and a boolean variable "S". "A" is only accessed when "S" is marked true. Thus, "S" is a semaphore for "A".


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: One can imagine a stoplight signal ("S") just before a train station ("A"). In this case, if the signal is green, then one can enter the train station. If it is yellow or red (or any other color), the train station cannot be accessed.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Consider a system that can only support ten users (S=10). Whenever a user logs in, P is called, decrementing the semaphore "S" by 1. Whenever a user logs out, V is called, incrementing "S" by 1 representing a login slot that has become available. When "S" is 0, any users wishing to log in must wait until "S" increases; the login request is enqueued onto a FIFO queue until a slot is freed. Mutual exclusion is used to ensure that requests are enqueued in order. Whenever "S" increases (login slots available), a login request is dequeued, and the user owning the request is allowed to log in. If "S" is already greater than or equal to 0, then login requests are immediately dequeued.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: In the producer–consumer problem, one process (the producer) generates data items and another process (the consumer) receives and uses them. They communicate using a queue of maximum size "N" and are subject to the following conditions:


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The semaphore solution to the producer–consumer problem tracks the state of the queue with two semaphores: codice_1, the number of empty places in the queue, and codice_2, the number of elements in the queue. To maintain integrity, codice_1 may be lower (but never higher) than the actual number of empty places in the queue, and codice_2 may be lower (but never higher) than the actual number of items in the queue. Empty places and items represent two kinds of resources, empty boxes and full boxes, and the semaphores codice_1 and codice_2 maintain control over these resources.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The binary semaphore codice_7 ensures that the integrity of the state of the queue itself is not compromised, for example by two producers attempting to add items to an empty queue simultaneously, thereby corrupting its internal state. Alternatively a mutex could be used in place of the binary semaphore.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: Note that codice_1 may be much lower than the actual number of empty places in the queue, for example in the case where many producers have decremented it but are waiting their turn on codice_7 before filling empty places. Note that codice_17 always holds, with equality if and only if no producers or consumers are executing their critical sections.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: The canonical names V and P come from the initials of Dutch words. V is generally explained as "verhogen" ("increase"). Several explanations have been offered for P, including "proberen" ("to test" or "to try"), "passeren" ("pass"), and "pakken" ("grab"). Dijkstra's earliest paper on the subject gives "passering" ("passing") as the meaning for "P", and "vrijgave" ("release") as the meaning for V. It also mentions that the terminology is taken from that used in railroad signals. Dijkstra subsequently wrote that he intended "P" to stand for "prolaag", short for "probeer te verlagen", literally "try to reduce", or to parallel the terms used in the other case, "try to decrease".


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: In ALGOL 68, the Linux kernel, and in some English textbooks, the "V" and "P" operations are called, respectively, "up" and "down". In software engineering practice, they are often called "signal" and "wait", "release" and "acquire" (which the standard Java library uses), or "post" and "pend". Some texts call them "vacate" and "procure" to match the original Dutch initials.


title: Semaphore (programming)

text: A mutex is a locking mechanism that sometimes uses the same basic implementation as the binary semaphore. The differences between them are in how they are used. While a binary semaphore may be colloquially referred to as a mutex, a true mutex has a more specific use-case and definition, in that only the task that locked the mutex is supposed to unlock it. This constraint aims to handle some potential problems of using semaphores:


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Taxi is a 2004 American action comedy film directed by Tim Story and starring Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon, Gisele Bündchen, Jennifer Esposito, and Ann-Margret. An incompetent New York City police officer is banned from driving and comes to rely on a talented taxi driver to help him solve a series of bank robberies. The film is a remake of the 1998 French film of the same name and was panned by critics.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Bicycle courier Belle Williams earns her taxi license and installs a supercharger in her custom-built 1999 Ford Crown Victoria taxicab. Her first customer offers her a $100 tip if she can make it to the Airport in fifteen minutes. She does.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Bumbling detective Andy Washburn crashes his partner's car and is demoted to foot patrol duty. Hearing of a bank robbery, Washburn flags down Belle's taxicab. They arrive at the bank just as a quartet of female Brazilian robbers leave in a BMW E65. Belle recognizes them as models she saw earlier at the airport. Their leader is Vanessa. Police arrive and mistakenly apprehend Belle and Washburn. Belle's cab is impounded, and she is questioned. Washburn promises to get her cab back if she helps him solve the bank robberies.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Washburn takes Belle to his home after her boyfriend kicks her out for missing a dinner date. Washburn's constantly drunk mother brings up embarrassing moments of Washburn's past and talks about why he's such a bad driver. Washburn convinces the impound cop to return Belle's cab. They realize the gang robs banks just before the garbage collection is due. They put the money in the trash which the garbage man then collects. Washburn is fired for disobeying orders and Belle is given a final warning for reckless driving. Belle teaches Washburn to drive and they discover the garbage collector is acting for the gang because they have kidnapped his wife. They recover the garbage collector's wife and all the loot.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: The police learn which bank is next to be hit and ambush the robbers, who take Lt. Robbins hostage and escape, followed by Washburn and Belle in her cab. Belle calls on the help of her bicycle courier friends to pinpoint the car. They negotiate a trade of the cash from the garbage truck for Robbins, and try to swap the hostage for the money while driving down the highway. Washburn forces the robbers down a long bridge under construction.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Vanessa fires her gun at them and wounds Belle. While the police arrest Vanessa, Washburn drives Belle to the hospital singing "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)". He crashes into the hospital so Belle can be quickly recovered.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Belle achieves her dream of driving NASCAR, sponsored by New York banks. Washburn is reinstated for foiling the robberies. Washburn's mother and Robbins attend Belle's first race to cheer her on. Jesse proposes to Belle. As Belle begins the race, Jeff Gordon pulls up as a challenger.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: "Taxi" was released on October 6, 2004 in 3,001 theaters and opened at #4 at the box office with $12 million in the opening weekend. It went on to gross $36.9 million domestically and $34.4 million from other markets for a worldwide total of $71.3 million, against a production budget of $25 million.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 9% based on 106 reviews, with an average rating of 3.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Silly and unfunny remake of a French movie of the same name." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 27 out of 100 based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote: "How one likes "Taxi" has everything to do with how one responds to the hapless cop character, played by Jimmy Fallon." LaSalle was also critical of the car chases, calling them "lackluster and fairly unconvincing."


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "This thoroughly repetitive, ill conceived and poorly executed effort -- with an emphasis on the word "effort"—defeats these two talented people more often than not."


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Robert Koehler of "Variety" called the film "embarrassing evidence that even a ragged French original can be better than its American remake. Failing to improve on the inept but hugely successful 1998 Luc Besson vehicle". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" states "Oh, this is a bad movie" and "only gets worse as it plows along".


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Megan Lehmann of the "New York Post" dubbed the film "Taxi Drivel" and said: "This witless action comedy begins to insult the audience's intelligence from the opening scene."


title: Taxi (2004 film)

text: Claudia Puig of "USA Today" wrote: "A surprisingly funny, female-driven romp — as long as you don't question too many plot particulars."


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: Truth Be Told is an American drama streaming television series based on the novel "Are You Sleeping" by Kathleen Barber and produced for Apple TV+. The series was created by Nichelle Tramble Spellman, who is also set to executive produce and write for the show. The series premiered on December 6, 2019.


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: The soundtrack, composed by John Paesano, was released by Lakeshore Records on the same day. New York's Paley Center also aired episodes of the show.


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: True crime podcaster Poppy Parnell is called to investigate the case of convicted killer Warren Cave, a man she painted as the murderer of the father of identical twin daughters Josie and Lanie. Soon, Parnell must decide where the lines between guilt and innocence lie when Cave claims that he was framed for the crime.


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: On January 3, 2018, Apple announced that it was developing a television series based on the novel "Are You Sleeping" by Kathleen Barber. The show was created by Nichelle Tramble Spellman who also wrote and executive produced the series as well. Other executive producers include Octavia Spencer via her Orit Entertainment, Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter for their company Hello Sunshine, and Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping and Kristen Campo for Chernin Entertainment. On May 2, 2018, Apple announced that they had given the production a series order for a first season consisting of ten episodes. On June 13, 2018, it was reported that Anna Foerster would direct the series' first episode. A featurette from the series was released on November 26, 2019. On March 5, 2020, Apple renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on August 20, 2021. On December 7, 2021, Apple renewed the series for a third season.


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: Simultaneously with reports of the series' development, it was confirmed that Octavia Spencer has been cast in the series' lead role. In June 2018, it was announced that Lizzy Caplan, Aaron Paul, Elizabeth Perkins, Mekhi Phifer, Michael Beach, Tracie Thoms, Haneefah Wood, and Ron Cephas Jones had joined the main cast. Caplan, Paul, and Perkins all reportedly signed one-year deals for the series. In July 2018, it was reported that Tami Roman and Moon Bloodgood had joined the main cast and that Nic Bishop, Annabella Sciorra, Molly Hagan, Billy Miller, Brett Cullen, and Hunter Doohan would appear in recurring roles. In August 2018, it was announced that Lyndon Smith had joined the cast in a recurring capacity. Additionally, it was reported that Bloodgood had dropped out of the role of Cath Min after filming of the first four episodes had been completed. The role was expected to be recast and her already-filmed scenes to be reshot. On October 8, 2018, it was announced that Katherine LaNasa had been cast to replace Bloodgood, and her character Cath Min, in the newly devised recurring role of Noa Havilland. On March 23, 2022, it was reported that Gabrielle Union has been cast as a lead role in the third season. On April 5, 2022, it was announced that Ana Ayora had joined the cast in the third season.


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: Principal photography for the series commenced on June 25, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Filming reportedly concluded on December 12, 2018. Production for the second season began in Los Angeles on October 26, 2020, after being briefly delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In February 2021, Leimert Park was planned to be a filming location for the second season but was delayed due to protesting against the filming. Filming moved to the Arts District in Los Angeles for the duration of April 2021 and wrapped by the end of the month. It was announced by Apple that third season has begun filming on April 15, 2022.


title: Truth Be Told (2019 TV series)

text: On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the series has a score of 31%, based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.72/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A twisty thriller that never quite comes together, "Truth Be Told"s commitment to the true crime at its center is less interesting or engaging than the family drama orbiting in the periphery." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: A nickel metal hydride battery (NiMH or Ni–MH) is a type of rechargeable battery. The chemical reaction at the positive electrode is similar to that of the nickel–cadmium cell (NiCd), with both using nickel oxide hydroxide (NiOOH). However, the negative electrodes use a hydrogen-absorbing alloy instead of cadmium. NiMH batteries can have two to three times the capacity of NiCd batteries of the same size, with significantly higher energy density, although much less than lithium-ion batteries.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: They are typically used as a substitute for similarly shaped non-rechargeable alkaline batteries, as they feature a slightly lower but generally compatible cell voltage, and are less prone to leaking.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: Work on NiMH batteries began at the Battelle-Geneva Research Center following the technology's invention in 1967. It was based on sintered TiNi+TiNi+x alloys and NiOOH electrodes. Development was sponsored over nearly two decades by Daimler-Benz and by Volkswagen AG within Deutsche Automobilgesellschaft, now a subsidiary of Daimler AG. The batteries' specific energy reached 50 W·h/kg (180 kJ/kg), specific power up to 1000 W/kg and a life of 500 charge cycles (at 100% depth of discharge). Patent applications were filed in European countries (priority: Switzerland), the United States, and Japan. The patents transferred to Daimler-Benz.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: Interest grew in the 1970s with the commercialisation of the nickel–hydrogen battery for satellite applications. Hydride technology promised an alternative, less bulky way to store the hydrogen. Research carried out by Philips Laboratories and France's CNRS developed new high-energy hybrid alloys incorporating rare-earth metals for the negative electrode. However, these suffered from alloy instability in alkaline electrolyte and consequently insufficient cycle life. In 1987, Willems and Buschow demonstrated a successful battery based on this approach (using a mixture of LaNdNiCoSi), which kept 84% of its charge capacity after 4000 charge–discharge cycles. More economically viable alloys using mischmetal instead of lanthanum were soon developed. Modern NiMH cells were based on this design. The first consumer-grade NiMH cells became commercially available in 1989.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: In 1998, Ovonic Battery Co. improved the Ti–Ni alloy structure and composition and patented its innovations.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: In the European Union due to its Battery Directive, nickel metal hydride batteries replaced Ni–Cd batteries for portable consumer use.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: About 22% of portable rechargeable batteries sold in Japan in 2010 were NiMH. In Switzerland in 2009, the equivalent statistic was approximately 60%. This percentage has fallen over time due to the increase in manufacture of lithium-ion batteries: in 2000, almost half of all portable rechargeable batteries sold in Japan were NiMH.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: In 2015 BASF produced a modified microstructure that helped make NiMH batteries more durable, in turn allowing changes to the cell design that saved considerable weight, allowing the specific energy to reach 140 watt-hours per kilogram.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: The reactions proceed left to right during charge and the opposite during discharge. The metal M in the negative electrode of a NiMH cell is an intermetallic compound. Many different compounds have been developed for this application, but those in current use fall into two classes. The most common is AB, where A is a rare-earth mixture of lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, praseodymium, and B is nickel, cobalt, manganese, or aluminium. Some cells use higher-capacity negative electrode materials based on AB compounds, where A is titanium or vanadium, and B is zirconium or nickel, modified with chromium, cobalt, iron, or manganese.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: NiMH cells have an alkaline electrolyte, usually potassium hydroxide. The positive electrode is nickel hydroxide, and the negative electrode is hydrogen in the form of an interstitial metal hydride. Hydrophilic polyolefin nonwovens are used for separation.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: NiMH batteries of bipolar design (bipolar batteries) are being developed because they offer some advantages for applications as storage systems for electric vehicles. The solid polymer membrane gel separator could be useful for such applications in bipolar design. In other words, this design can help to avoid short-circuits occurring in liquid-electrolyte systems.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: When fast-charging, it is advisable to charge the NiMH cells with a smart battery charger to avoid overcharging, which can damage cells.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: The simplest of the safe charging methods is with a fixed low current, with or without a timer. Most manufacturers claim that overcharging is safe at very low currents, below 0.1 "C" ("C"/10) (where "C" is the current equivalent to the capacity of the battery divided by one hour). The Panasonic NiMH charging manual warns that overcharging for long enough can damage a battery and suggests limiting the total charging time to 10–20 hours.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: Duracell further suggests that a trickle charge at "C"/300 can be used for batteries that must be kept in a fully charged state. Some chargers do this after the charge cycle, to offset natural self-discharge. A similar approach is suggested by Energizer, which indicates that self-catalysis can recombine gas formed at the electrodes for charge rates up to C/10. This leads to cell heating. The company recommends "C"/30 or "C"/40 for indefinite applications where long life is important. This is the approach taken in emergency lighting applications, where the design remains essentially the same as in older NiCd units, except for an increase in the trickle-charging resistor value.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: Panasonic's handbook recommends that NiMH batteries on standby be charged by a lower duty cycle approach, where a pulse of a higher current is used whenever the battery's voltage drops below 1.3 V. This can extend battery life and use less energy.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: To prevent cell damage, fast chargers must terminate their charge cycle before overcharging occurs. One method is to monitor the change of voltage with time. When the battery is fully charged, the voltage across its terminals drops slightly. The charger can detect this and stop charging. This method is often used with nickel–cadmium cells, which display a large voltage drop at full charge. However, the voltage drop is much less pronounced for NiMH and can be non-existent at low charge rates, which can make the approach unreliable.


title: Nickel–metal hydride battery

text: Another option is to monitor the change of voltage with respect to time and stop when this becomes zero, but this risks premature cutoffs. With this method, a much higher charging rate can be used than with a trickle charge, up to 1 "C". At this charge rate, Panasonic recommends to terminate charging when the voltage drops 5–10 mV per cell from the peak voltage. Since this method measures the voltage across the battery, a constant-current (rather than a constant-voltage) charging circuit is used.