Background Staphylococcus aureus is the predominant bacterium responsible for various diseases in animals and humans. Preventive strategies could be better implemented by understanding the prevalence, genetic patterns, and the presence of enterotoxin and biofilm-producing genes along with the antibiotic susceptibility of this organism. This study was conducted in Rajasthan, the northwestern state of India, holding the largest population of cattle that makes it the second largest milk producer in India and no such prior information is available on these aspects.MethodsA total of 368 individual quarter bovine raw milk samples were collected from 13 districts of Rajasthan, and screened for the presence of S. aureus. Microbiological and molecular approaches were followed for bacterial identification. Genetic diversity was determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR–RFLP) of coagulase gene (coa), whereas enterotoxin and biofilm-producing genes were studied by PCR analysis. Antibiotic strips were employed to study the antibiotic resistance among strains.ResultsIn all, 73 S. aureus strains were obtained from 368 bovine raw milk samples out of that only 30 showed the presence of coa. Nine types of coa patterns ranging from 730 to 1130 bp were observed among these isolates. PCR–RFLP of coa distinguished the isolates into 15 genotypic patterns, of which patterns I, IV, V, and VI were predominant. Of the isolates, 30% were positive for sec, 10% for sea, and 3.3% for seb; these genes are responsible for enterotoxin production, whereas all isolates were found positive for icaAD and eno. The prevalence rates of other biofilm-producing genes fnbA, clfB, ebpS, sasG, fnbB, sasC, cna, bap, fib and, bbp were 97, 93, 90, 80, 80, 77, 53, 27, 10, and 6.6%, respectively. Twenty-seven (90%) strains were multidrug resistant, of which 15 were methicillin resistant. Maximum sensitivity was reported for kanamycin and it could be considered as a drug of choice for controlling S. aureus mediated cattle infections in the studied regions.ConclusionsOverall, these strains could cause several diseases to humans, insisting the need for developing a stricter hygiene program for improving milking practices and animal health.

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The study attempts to assess the level of environmental sustainability awareness in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the process, the study tries to assess the impact of extracurricular activities in increasing awareness of environmental sustainability. A survey questionnaire was administered to the students of Prince Sattam University and other universities of Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire comprises statements on simple environmental conservation activities, which we come across on a daily basis. Hypothesis testing is used to identify significant differences across different categories of respondents. Further, the method of binary logistic regression is used to analyze the data. Though all the respondents agree that conserving the environment is important still there are significant differences across categories when it comes to believing in and practicing environmentally-responsible behavior. The results show that environmental awareness can be increased using awareness activities on sustainability issues in a University setting. The study concludes that increasing the number of extracurricular activities on environmental topics as only 38% of the respondents reported any activity related to the environment in the past year. The findings of this study suggest that increased awareness of environmental issues can boost the sustainability awareness, which will ultimately lead to a sustainable environment.

The Next 11 countries are among the world's most rapidy emerging economies that are poised to becoming key drivers of the global economy. Nonetheless, despite progressing economically, these nations have experienced persistent deterioration in their environmental conditions. Hence, this study specifically investigates whether energy productivity gains, controlling for financial inclusion, renewable energy use, economic growth, international trade, and urbanization, can harness the carbon dioxide emissions (CO2E)-inhibiting objectives of the Next 11 countries. The empirical analysis, using annual data spanning from 2004 to 2020, involves the application of advanced econometric tools that are robust to handling the cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity-related issues.The results from the econometric analysis indicate that although energy productivity gains and greater renewable energy consumption reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, making the financial system more inclusive tends to amplify the emission levels. More importantly, energy productivity gains and financial inclusion are observed to jointly reduce the CO2E figures of the Next 11 countries. Thus, it can be said that making more productive use of energy can, to some extent, neutralize the adverse environmenntal impacts of financial inclusion. Additionally, higher economic growth, greater international trade participation, and urbanization are evidenced to boost CO2E in these countries while higher renewable energy use is observed to curb the emission levels. Furthermore, heterogeneous countryspecific outcomes are also witnessed. In particular, energy productivity improvement is seen to curb CO2E in eight of these nations while a simultaneous rise in the levels of energy productivity and financial inclusion is found to jointly mitigate and boost CO2E in 55% and 18% of the Next 11 nations, respectively. Hence, in line with these key findings, a set of critically important environmental development-related policies are suggested.