Swabians are Germanic people who are native to the ethnocultural and linguistic region of Swabia, now divided between the modern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, in southwestern Germany. The name is derived from the medieval Duchy of Swabia, one of the German stem duchies, representing the territory of Alemannia, whose inhabitants were interchangeably called Alemanni or Suebi; this territory would include all of the Alemannic German areal, but the modern concept of Swabia is more restricted, due to the collapse of the duchy of Swabia in the 13th century. Swabia as understood in modern ethnography coincides with the Swabian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire as it stood during the Early Modern period. Swabian culture, as distinct from its Alemannic neighbours, evolved in the medieval and early modern period. After the disintegration of the Duchy of Swabia, a Swabian cultural identity and sense of cultural unity survived, expressed in the formation of the Swabian League of Cities in the 14th century, the Swabian League of 1488, the establishment of the Swabian Circle in 1512.

During this time, a division of culture and identity developed between Swabia and both the Margraviate of Baden to the west and the Swiss Confederacy to the south. Swabian culture retains many elements common to Alemannic tradition, notably the carnival traditions forming the Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht; as the national cultural consensus surrounding German unification was built during the 18th and 19th century, Germany was politically dominated by the northern Kingdom of Prussia, Weimar Classicism became the expression of German national "high culture". As a consequence, southern Germany and by extension both the Swabians and the Bavarians came to be seen as marked deviations from generic Standard German, a number of clichés or stereotypes developed; these portrayed the Swabians as stingy, overly serious or prudish petty bourgeois simpletons, as reflected in "The Seven Swabians", one of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen published by the Brothers Grimm. On the positive side, the same stereotype may be expressed in portraying the Swabians as frugal, clever and hard-working.

The economic recovery of Germany after the Second World War, known as the Wirtschaftswunder, was praised by songwriter Ralf Bendix in his 1964 Schaffe, schaffe Häusle baue / Und net nach de Mädle schaue. The first line of his song has since become a common summary of Swabian stereotypes known throughout Germany. In a noted publicity campaign on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Baden-Württemberg, economically the most successful state in modern Germany, the Swabians famously embraced their stereotyping, "We can do everything—except speak Standard German". Swabian stereotypes persist in contemporary Germany, as expressed e.g. in the "Schwabenhass" conflict, or a remark by chancellor Angela Merkel in praise of the "thrifty Swabian housewife". The ethno-linguistic group of Swabians speak Swabian German, a branch of the Alemannic group of German dialects. Swabian is cited as "40 percent intelligible" to speakers of Standard German; as an ethno-linguistic group, Swabians are related to other speakers of Alemannic German, i.e. Badeners and German-speaking Swiss.

Swabian German is traditionally spoken in the upper Neckar basin, along the upper Danube between Tuttlingen and Donauwörth, on the left bank of the Lech, in an areal centered on the Swabian Alps stretching from Stuttgart to Augsburg. SIL Ethnologue cites an estimate of 819,000 Swabian speakers as of 2006. During the 17th and 18th century the Dutch Republic was known for its wealth and religious tolerance, substantial numbers of Swabians moved there in search of either work or religious freedom; those with large debts ended up conscripted as sailors and soldiers for the Dutch East India Company settling in the Dutch Cape Colony, Dutch East Indies or Ceylon. Besides individual Swabians, the Duke Charles Eugene of Württemberg concluded an agreement with the DEIC in 1786 to furnish a regiment of 2000 men to the DEIC for the sum of 300 000 guilders; this became known as the Württemberg Cape Regiment. Their presence among the Dutch at the Cape contributed to the Dutch term swaapstreek referencing the Seven Swabians tale.

During the 18th century East Colonisation, many Swabians were attracted by the Austrian Empire's offer of settling in East European lands, left sparsely populated by the wars with Turkey. These ethnic German communities came to be known collectively as the Danube Swabians, subdivided into such groups as the Banat Swabians, Satu Mare Swabians and others. Swabians settled in eastern Croatia, southern and western Hungary, including part of what is now Serbia and Romania in the 18th century, where they were invited as pioneers to repopulate some areas, they settled in Russia and Kazakhstan. They were well-respected as farmers. All of the several milli

The Access to Medicine Index is a ranking system published biennially since 2008 by the Access to Medicine Foundation in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, an international not-for-profit organisation, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Department for International Development and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It ranks the world’s 20 largest pharmaceutical companies according to their ability to make their pharmaceutical drugs more available, affordable and acceptable in 106 low- to middle-income countries; the biennial index aims to stimulate industry to improve access in developing countries, to show the activities of their peers, allow them, investors, civil society, patient organisations and academia to gather and form a common view of how pharmaceutical companies can make further progress. The latest Access to Medicine Index, published in November 2018, ranked the top 20 pharmaceutical companies as follows: The Access to Medicine Index was developed starting in 2004 on the initiative of Dutch entrepreneur Wim Leereveld.

After years of working with the pharmaceutical industry, he concluded that "naming and shaming" the industry did not do enough to encourage pharmaceutical companies to play their part in improving access to medicine in the developing world. Leereveld noticed that there were many different opinions about what the pharmaceutical industry should be doing with regard to access to medicine, but that there was no tool to recognise good practice within the pharmaceutical industry and no framework for collective dialogue surrounding this issue, he set out to develop a ranking system that would show which pharmaceutical companies do the most to improve access to medicine and how, help stakeholders to collectively define companies’ role in increasing access to medicine. The first Access to Medicine Index was published in 2008, followed by a new Index every two years; the 2017 Methodology for the 2018 Access to Medicine Index was published in October 2017. The Access to Medicine Index uses a weighted analysis to capture and compare data which the companies provide.

The framework is constructed along seven areas of focus called ‘Technical Areas’, which cover the range of company business activities considered relevant to access to medicine. Within each area, the Index assesses four aspects of company action called ‘Strategic Pillars’: commitments, transparency and innovation. Company Scope The Access to Medicine Index ranks 20 of the world's largest originator pharmaceutical companies, based on market capitalisation and the relevance of their product portfolios to diseases in the developing world. One unlisted company, Boehringer Ingelheim, is included since it meets the size and portfolio relevance criteria. In 2008 and 2010, the Access to Medicine Index measured companies engaged in the production of generic drugs. Based on feedback from the 2011 stakeholder consultations, these companies were excluded from the 2012 Index and subsequent iterations; the Access to Medicine Foundation stated that it recognised that these companies play a significant role in access to medicine in low- and middle-income countries.

Geographic scope The Access to Medicine Index focuses on low and middle income countries, based on World Bank classifications measuring economic advancement, human development, relative levels of inequality. And United Nations The 2018 Index measured developments in a total of 106 countries, including countries considered to be low income and lower-middle income countries by the World Bank, Least Developed Countries as defined by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. In addition, countries classified as low human development countries and medium human development countries by the UN Human Development Index are included. Based on the UN Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index, the Index includes countries which, while they may have higher measures of development, have comparatively high levels of socio-economic inequality. Disease scope The Access to Medicine Index covers a range of diseases based on their aggregate global disease burden and their relevance to pharmaceutical interventions, in accordance with non-age-weighted WHO Disability Adjusted Life Years data.

Those diseases for which pharmaceutical interventions were irrelevant are excluded. In the 2018 Index, the disease scope consisted of a combination of the following: The top 11 communicable diseases based on DALYs from the WHO Global Health Observatory 2015 DALY Estimates The top 10 non-communicable diseases based on DALYs from the WHO Global Health Observatory 2015 DALY Estimates 20 of the WHO Neglected Tropical Diseases 10 maternal and neonatal health conditions identified by Every Woman Every Child. In addition, the Index captures activity on contraceptives. 12 priority pathogens from the 2017 WHO priority pathogens list. 17 cancers with high disease burdens based on data from the WHO Global Cancer Observatory. 19 cancers with relevant products on the 2017 WHO Model List of Essential Medicines are in scope for technical areas relating to pricing and donations. Nine cancers are in both sets. Product type scope To reflect the range of available product types for prevention and treatment of diseases, the Index maintains a broad product type scope which draws from definitions provided by the G-Finder Report.

Since its inception, the Access to Medicine Index has progressed to be a cited and ‘authoritative’ benchmark for pharmaceutical companies with regard to their access to medicine initiatives. In addition to global media outlets reporting on the Access to Medicine Index and its findings, significant coverage includes: In July

An askari was a local soldier serving in the armies of the European colonial powers in Africa in the African Great Lakes, Northeast Africa and Central Africa. The word is used in this sense in English, as well as in German, Italian and Portuguese. In French, the word is used only in reference to native troops outside the French colonial empire; the designation is still in occasional use today to informally describe police and security guards. During the period of the European colonial empires in Africa, locally recruited soldiers were employed by Italian, Portuguese and Belgian colonial armies, they played a crucial role in the conquest of the various colonial possessions, subsequently served as garrison and internal security forces. During both World Wars, askari units served outside their colonies of origin, in various parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Askari is a loan word from the Arabic عسكري, meaning "soldier"; the Arabic word is a derivation from the Middle Persian word "lashkar" meaning "army".

Words for " soldier" derived from these words are found in Azeri, Malay, Swahili and Urdu. In the Belgian Congo, the askaris were organised into the Force Publique; this combined military and police force was commanded by white Belgian officers and non commissioned officers. The Imperial British East Africa Company raised units of askaris from among the Swahili people, the Sudanese and Somalis. There standardised weaponry. Many of the askaris campaigned in their native dress. Officers wore civilian clothes. From 1895 the British askaris were organised into a regular and uniformed force called the East African Rifles forming part of the multi-battalion King's African Rifles; the designation of "askari" was retained for locally recruited troops in the King's African Rifles, smaller military units and police forces in the colonies until the end of British rule in Kenya and Uganda during the period 1961–63. Because of its colonial connotations the term was discarded during the 1960s; the German Colonial Army of the German Empire employed native troops with European officers and NCOs in its colonies.

The main concentration of such locally recruited troops was in German East Africa, formed in 1881 after the transfer of the Wissmanntruppe to German imperial control. The first askaris formed in German East Africa were raised by DOAG in about 1888. Drawn from Sudanese mercenaries, the German askaris were subsequently recruited from the Wahehe and Angoni tribal groups, they were harshly disciplined but well paid, trained by German cadres who were themselves subject to a rigorous selection process. Prior to 1914 the basic Schutztruppe unit in Southeast Africa was the Feldkompanie comprising seven or eight German officers and NCOs with between 150 and 200 askaris —including two machine gun teams; such small independent commands were supplemented by tribal irregulars or Ruga-Ruga. They were used in German East Africa where 11,000 askaris and their European officers, commanded by Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, managed to resist numerically superior British and Belgian colonial forces until the end of World War I in 1918.

The Weimar Republic and pre-war Nazi Germany provided pension payments to the German askaris. Due to interruptions during the worldwide depression and World War II, the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany voted in 1964 to fund the back pay of the askaris still alive; the West German embassy at Dar es Salaam identified 350 ex-askaris and set up a temporary cashiers office at Mwanza on Lake Victoria. Only a few claimants could produce the certificates given to them in 1918; the banker who had brought the money came up with an idea: each claimant was handed a broom and ordered in German to perform the manual of arms. Not one of them failed the test. During World War II, the Germans used the term "askaris" for Red Army, predominantly Russian, deserters and POWs who formed units fighting against the Red Army and in other action on the Eastern front. Western Ukrainian volunteer units like the Nightingale Battalion, Schuma battalions, the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS were called Askari.

These battalions were used in many operations during World War II. Most of them were either Red Army deserters or anti-communist peasants recruited from Western Ukrainian rural areas under German occupation; the Italian army in Italian East Africa recruited Eritrean and subsequently Somali troops to serve with Italian officers and some NCOs. These forces comprised infantry, camel-mounted and light artillery units. Somali personnel were recruited to serve with Royal Italian Navy ships operating in the Indian Ocean; the Italian askaris fought in the Mahdist War, Battle of Coatit, First Italo–Ethiopian War, Italian-Turkish War, Second Italo-Abyssinian War and in the World War II East African Campaign. Many of the Askaris in Eritrea were drawn from local Nilotic populations, including Hamid Idris Awate, who reputedly had some Nara ancestry. Of these troops, the first Eritrean battalions were raised in 1888 from Muslim and Christian volunteers, replacing an earlier Basci-Buruk corps of irregulars.

The four Indigeni battalions in existence by 1891 were incorporated into the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops that year. Expanded to

Sony Vaio FE series started in 2006 with the FE11 and ends in 2007 with the FE41. The FE series was designed as an entertainment notebook, suitably portable; the FE series includes FE48 models. They possess various types of a 15.4" 1280x800 X-Black screen either with one or two backlight lamps. It is not known that the type and quality of the LCD matrix has widely varied; the FE11 series has a rare type of a 72% TrueColor screen whose colour reproduction quality makes it suitable for graphics applications. FE31 series possesses a low quality screen whose colour reproduction is of the market average level at best; some improvements have been made to the FE41 series screens, which have become better but do not reach the FE11 screen quality. It was superseded by the Sony VAIO FZ series in July 2007. Nearly all the FE series machines contain a VGA webcam, wireless A/B/G, memory stick reader and models have Bluetooth; the VGN-FE28B does not contain a webcam

Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is the civic body that governs the city of Vijayawada in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The Vijayawada Municipality was created on 1 April 1888, it was named as a selection grade municipality in 1960 and to corporation in 1981. In 1985 Gunadala and Bhavanipuram village panchayats, Kundavari Kandrika were merged in the corporation; the area of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is 61.88 km2. The Corporation is administered by an elected body headed by the Mayor; the corporation population as per the 2011 census was 1,039,518 with 527,307 males and a female population of 512,211. The present mayor is Koneru Sreedhar and the municipal commissioner is Sri J. Nivas, I. A. S; the corporation provides protected drinking water to its public and is the forerunner in the state with every day supply of 39 million US gallons water to the city residents. The other services undertaken by the corporation authorities are: Internal roads extension; the Krishna river and overhead tanks are the source of drinking water for the city residents.

The underground and open draining systems are implemented for wastewater. There are sewage treatment plants and the Budameru, Islampeta and HB drains are utilized for draining out waste water; the Railway dumping yard is utilized for solid waste dumping and some of the solid waste produced is made useful by converting them into manures. There are a total of 32,262 Street lights in Corporation's area. Certain municipal sporting infrastructure in the city are maintained by the corporation, which includes, Indira Gandhi Stadium, indoor stadiums, swimming pools and Gymnasiums. There are open spaces as part of city greenery projects. Accolades and awards won by VMC include: National Urban Water Award CRISIL Best Practices Award for the "Siti e-Governance" Project CSI Nihilent runner-up award was conferred by Ministry of Information and Technology Stockholm Challenge Award finalist ISO 9001 Certified for Quality Management System List of municipal corporations in India#Andhra Pradesh

French Leave is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 20 January 1956 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on 28 September 1959 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. New York. French Leave was adapted from Guy Bolton's 1938 stage play, Three Blind Mice, which Bolton wrote under the pseudonym Stephen Powys; the play had been performed in London and adapted as a film three times: Three Blind Mice, Moon Over Miami, Three Little Girls in Blue. Bolton's play was made into a Broadway stage musical, Walk With Music. In the novel, American chicken farmer Teresa "Terry" Trent spends her vacation with her sisters in the French towns of St. Rocque and Roville, falls in love with a French writer; the title of the novel stems from the expression french leave - to leave without saying goodbye to one's host or hostess. The Trent sisters, Teresa and Kate, run a farm with hens and bees in the village of Bensonburg in Long island. Henry Weems, who wants to marry Jo, works for a legal firm that has managed the sale of a play written by the sisters' late father for television, each girl receives a large payment.

Jo wants to go to St. Rocque for the Festival and to marry a millionaire, whereas Teresa, the youngest sister, wants to have fun in Roville and return to farming. Jo and Teresa agree to pool their money and buy one set of nice clothes, with one girl acting as the rich Miss Trent and the other as Fellowes, Miss Trent's personal maid, for a month, vise versa. Kate, the oldest sister, disapproves of them squandering their money but accompanies them as an austere chaperone. Nicolas Jules St Xavier Auguste, Marquis de Maufringneuse et Valerie-Moberanne has a minor civil service job in Paris. Nick divorced his second wife, both American, he is well-mannered but lazy and fired by his employer, Monsieur de La Hourmerie, though he inadvertently takes away a dossier with him. Nick had a son with his first wife named Jefferson "Jeff" Auguste, Comte d'Escrignon, a writer, in the Maquis. Old Nick goes to St. Rocque. Jeff follows. Jo, who will be the rich Miss Trent first, hopes to court a rich American Chester Todd.

Chester's wealthy friend Frederick "Freddie" Carpenter hides after his trousers are stolen. Terry gets Old Nick to assist him, Nick is rewarded with a cruise on Carpenter's yacht to Roville. On the yacht will be Chester's aunt, Hermione Pegler, Chester's sister, Mavis Todd. Jo learns that Chester is married and goes home to marry Henry, while Terry and Kate head to Rovillle. Old Nick, believing Terry is rich, introduces her to Jeff, they soon fall in love. Mrs. Pegler has holdings in the sparkling water company controlled by Freddie and the rival company controlled by Mavis and Chester, she encourages a marriage between Mavis and Freddie to promote a merger between the companies that would increase the value of her holdings. Fearing that Old Nick will try to pair Jeff with Mavis and that Terry will steal Freddie, Mrs. Pegler pays Pierre Alexandre Boissonade, the brusque and unpleasant Commissaire of Police at Roville, to search Terry's room for anything incriminating. M. de La Hourmerie demands the missing dossier.

Kate learns from him that Nick and Jeff have little money, she tells Nick that Terry has little money, which turns Nick against a match between Jeff and Terry. Jeff goes to Paris to see publisher J. Russell Clutterbuck, a customer of the Trent farm. Terry is warned by Boissonade's sympathetic subordinate about the search, so she asks Freddie, a former American football player, to guard her room, he punches Boissonade. Kate, Old Nick, others discover Freddie with Terry in her room. Nick tells Freddie he must marry telephones a newspaper to announce the engagement. Terry refuses to marry Freddie, Freddie, who loves Mavis, gets engaged to her, to Mrs. Pegler's delight. Terry reconsiders marrying Freddie when she mistakenly thinks Jeff has gone to Paris to leave her, Jeff is misled by the newspaper announcement, but they reconcile. Old Nick steals money from Mrs. Pegler under the pretense of borrowing it. Chester recognizes Terry as Jo's maid Fellowes, Mrs. Pegler believes Terry stole the money. Boissonade confronts Terry.

Nick confesses to Clutterbuck. Boissonade does not believe him, so Clutterbuck knocks him out, allowing Terry and Jeff to escape to America. Clutterbuck is left to explain everything to Kate. Nine months Terry sees Clutterbuck in New York. Jeff's novel has been turned into a successful play by Sam Behrman. Old Nick married a French cook, Clutterbuck got him the job of head waiter at a New York restaurant, where Nick is the boss of his old friend Prince Blamont-Chevry; the plot of French Leave had been used in a play by Guy Bolton for which Bolton had sold the rights to MGM. "Do we coyly reveal the fact that your play on which the book was founded has been made into a picture three times?" Wodehouse wrote him in 1962. "Secrecy and silence, I think, don't you? All moneys will be paid to me as the sole author and I will slip yours -- in pounds, if you are still in England when the advance comes in, or in dollars if you are over here." The titles of some of the French characters in the novel, the Marquis de Maufringneuse et Valerie-Moberanne, the Comte d'Escrignon and Prince Blamont-Chevry, are similar to those of some recurring characters in Honoré de Balza