Numerical Solution of the Ekpyrotic Scenario in the Moduli Space Approximation

A numerical solution to the equations of motion for the ekpyrotic bulk brane scenario in the moduli space approximation is presented. The visible universe brane has positive tension, and we use a potential that goes to zero exponentially at large distance, and also goes to zero at small distance. In the case considered, no bulk brane, visible brane collision occurs in the solution. This property and the general behavior of the solution is qualitatively the same when the visible brane tension is negative, and for many different parameter choices.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, RevTeX4, fixed typos, added some small comment

Classification of Acoustic Hearing Preservation After Cochlear Implantation Using Electrocochleography

The objective to preserve residual hearing during cochlear implantation has recently led to the use of intracochlear electrocochleography (ECochG) as an intraoperative monitoring tool. Currently, a decrease in the amplitude of the difference between responses to alternating-polarity stimuli (DIF response), predominantly reflecting the hair cell response, is used for providing feedback. Including other ECochG response components, such as phase changes and harmonic distortions, could improve the accuracy of surgical feedback. The objectives of the present study were (1) to compare simultaneously recorded stepwise intracochlear and extracochlear ECochG responses to 500 Hz tone bursts, (2) to explore patterns in features extracted from the intracochlear ECochG recordings relating to hearing preservation or hearing loss, and (3) to design support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) classifiers of acoustic hearing preservation that treat each subject as a sample and use all intracochlear ECochG recordings made during electrode array insertion for classification. Forty subjects undergoing cochlear implant (CI) surgery at the Oslo University Hospital, St. Thomas’ Hearing Implant Centre, or the University Hospital of Zurich were prospectively enrolled. In this cohort, DIF response amplitude decreases did not relate to postoperative acoustic hearing preservation. Exploratory analysis of the feature set extracted from the ECochG responses and preoperative audiogram showed that the features were not discriminative between outcome classes. The SVM and RF classifiers that were trained on these features could not distinguish cases with hearing loss and hearing preservation. These findings suggest that hearing loss following CI surgery is not always reflected in intraoperative ECochG recordings