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Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus laniger) are natural inhabitants of deciduous forests. They live solitary in their natural habitat. Their captive behaviour was studied by taking two Asiatic black bear pairs as study subjects in Lahore Zoo, Pakistan. The study was based on the provision of environmental enrichments to the bear pairs. Each pair's pre-enrichment activity budget data was collected by scan sampling method of 70 h, documenting the cage area and behavioural ethogram. The observed behaviours were resting, eating, drinking, locomotion, aggression, urination, defecation, fighting, pacing, playing, foaming, cage exploration, and being out of view. Two different enrichments were installed for two pairs. The first pair was provided with a feeding enrichment consisting of a large wood log applied with small wooden branches on it, upon which food-filled plastic tires were hung. The second enrichment was installed in the second bear pair's cage, consisting of two wooden platforms attached to the ground with iron rods. A 20-h post-enrichment activity budget of both bear pairs was recorded and compared with their pre-enrichment activity budget. The results showed that there was a significant increase (p=0.003) in cage exploration by the installation of feeding enrichment while a significant increase was observed in cage exploration (p=0.04), drinking (p=0.04), and resting (p=0.001) behaviours by the installation of wooden platforms. All the other activities had no significant impact of both enrichments. This study revealed the significance of environmental enrichments on the activity budget of black bears in captivity and can be proved as footprints for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To identify the susceptibility of Ceftazidime-avibactam against Escherichia coli and their frequency in different clinical specimens. To correlate the susceptibility pattern of ceftazidime-avibactam against Escherichia coli in different age groups and gender. To evaluate susceptibility of drugs among Escherichia coli as compared to traditional antibiotics. Study Design: Cross-sectional Study. Setting: PNS Shifa Hospital Karachi. Period: September 2019 to May 2020. Material & Methods: The sample size was 150. The age group 10-50 years. Ethical permission was taken. Informed consent was taken. The specimens were inoculated on Blood and MacConkey’s agar culture plates. The culture plate was inoculated at 37℃ in incubator for 24 to 48 hours. Identification of Enterobacteriaceae was done by colony morphology, gram staining, biochemical tests, and API 20E. After identification, the susceptibility profile of conventional antibiotics was identified. Mueller Hinton agar was used to check the antibiotic susceptibility of Ceftazidime-avibactam by disk diffusion method. Results: Ceftazidime-avibactam shows sensitivity against 82.7% of the isolates while 17.3 % isolates were resistant. The minimum inhibitory concentration of microorganisms is measured by E-test method that revealed most of the isolate show sensitivity less than 1 μg/mL concentration whereas few of them showed susceptibility on 2-8 μg/mL concentration. We compared our results with other classes of antibiotics used commonly This gives an insight for improved treatment methodologies for future prospects particularly diseases caused by members of Enterobacteriaceae. Conclusion: It was concluded that Ceftazidime-avibactam is a novel drug combination that shows high sensitivity against Escherichia coli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]