The present paper includes 18 folk formularies which had long been used traditionally against fertility among the rural women folk of Thiruvanan-thapuram district, Kerala.
High doses of iodine-131 are commonly used in patients with differentiated thyroid cancer after total or subtotal thyroidectomy, in order to ablate the remaining cancer or normal thyroid tissue. ...Multiple different false-positive scans can occur in the absence of residual thyroid tissue or metastases. The authors present a case of abnormal uptake of radioactive iodine in the aspergilloma, potentially masquerading as pulmonary metastases.
We have searched for continuous gravitational wave (CGW) signals produced by individually resolvable, circular supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in the latest EPTA dataset, which consists of ...ultra-precise timing data on 41 millisecond pulsars. We develop frequentist and Bayesian detection algorithms to search both for monochromatic and frequency-evolving systems. None of the adopted algorithms show evidence for the presence of such a CGW signal, indicating that the data are best described by pulsar and radiometer noise only. Depending on the adopted detection algorithm, the 95\% upper limit on the sky-averaged strain amplitude lies in the range \(6\times 10^{-15}<A<1.5\times10^{-14}\) at \(5{\rm nHz}<f<7{\rm nHz}\). This limit varies by a factor of five, depending on the assumed source position, and the most constraining limit is achieved towards the positions of the most sensitive pulsars in the timing array. The most robust upper limit -- obtained via a full Bayesian analysis searching simultaneously over the signal and pulsar noise on the subset of ours six best pulsars -- is \(A\approx10^{-14}\). These limits, the most stringent to date at \(f<10{\rm nHz}\), exclude the presence of sub-centiparsec binaries with chirp mass \(\cal{M}_c>10^9\)M\(_\odot\) out to a distance of about 25Mpc, and with \(\cal{M}_c>10^{10}\)M\(_\odot\) out to a distance of about 1Gpc (\(z\approx0.2\)). We show that state-of-the-art SMBHB population models predict \(<1\%\) probability of detecting a CGW with the current EPTA dataset, consistent with the reported non-detection. We stress, however, that PTA limits on individual CGW have improved by almost an order of magnitude in the last five years. The continuing advances in pulsar timing data acquisition and analysis techniques will allow for strong astrophysical constraints on the population of nearby SMBHBs in the coming years.
We present new limits on an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) using a six pulsar dataset spanning 18 yr of observations from the 2015 European Pulsar Timing Array data release. ...Performing a Bayesian analysis, we fit simultaneously for the intrinsic noise parameters for each pulsar, along with common correlated signals including clock, and Solar System ephemeris errors, obtaining a robust 95\(\%\) upper limit on the dimensionless strain amplitude \(A\) of the background of \(A<3.0\times 10^{-15}\) at a reference frequency of \(1\mathrm{yr^{-1}}\) and a spectral index of \(13/3\), corresponding to a background from inspiralling super-massive black hole binaries, constraining the GW energy density to \(\Omega_\mathrm{gw}(f)h^2 < 1.1\times10^{-9}\) at 2.8 nHz. We also present limits on the correlated power spectrum at a series of discrete frequencies, and show that our sensitivity to a fiducial isotropic GWB is highest at a frequency of \(\sim 5\times10^{-9}\)~Hz. Finally we discuss the implications of our analysis for the astrophysics of supermassive black hole binaries, and present 95\(\%\) upper limits on the string tension, \(G\mu/c^2\), characterising a background produced by a cosmic string network for a set of possible scenarios, and for a stochastic relic GWB. For a Nambu-Goto field theory cosmic string network, we set a limit \(G\mu/c^2<1.3\times10^{-7}\), identical to that set by the {\it Planck} Collaboration, when combining {\it Planck} and high-\(\ell\) Cosmic Microwave Background data from other experiments. For a stochastic relic background we set a limit of \(\Omega^\mathrm{relic}_\mathrm{gw}(f)h^2<1.2 \times10^{-9}\), a factor of 9 improvement over the most stringent limits previously set by a pulsar timing array.
We report on the setup and initial discoveries of the Northern High Time Resolution Universe survey for pulsars and fast transients, the first major pulsar survey conducted with the 100-m Effelsberg ...radio telescope and the first in 20 years to observe the whole northern sky at high radio frequencies. Using a newly developed 7-beam receiver system combined with a state-of-the-art polyphase filterbank, we record an effective bandwidth of 240 MHz in 410 channels centred on 1.36 GHz with a time resolution of 54 \(\mu\)s. Such fine time and frequency resolution increases our sensitivity to millisecond pulsars and fast transients, especially deep inside the Galaxy, where previous surveys have been limited due to intra-channel dispersive smearing. To optimise observing time, the survey is split into three integration regimes dependent on Galactic latitude, with 1500-s, 180-s and 90-s integrations for latitude ranges \(|b|<3.5^{\circ}\), \(|b|<15^{\circ}\) and \(|b|>15^{\circ}\), respectively. The survey has so far resulted in the discovery of 15 radio pulsars, including a pulsar with a characteristic age of \(\sim18\) kyr, {PSR J2004+3429}, and a highly eccentric, binary millisecond pulsar, {PSR J1946+3417}. All newly discovered pulsars are timed using the 76-m Lovell radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory and the Effelsberg radio telescope. We present timing solutions for all newly discovered pulsars and discuss potential supernova remnant associations for {PSR J2004+3429}.
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