The New Concept of Universal Service in a Digital Networked Communications Environment

Digitization, sophisticated fiber-optic networks and the resultant convergence of the media, communications and information technology industries have completely transformed the communications ecosystem in the last couple of decades. New contingent business and social models were created that have been mirrored in the amended communications regimes. Yet, despite an overhaul of the communications regulation paradigm, the status of and the rules on universal service have remained surprisingly intact, both during and after the liberalization exercise. The present paper looks into this paradox and examines the sustainability of the existing concept of universal service. It suggests that there is a need for a novel concept of universal service in the digital networked communications environment, whose objectives go beyond the conventional internalizing and redistributional rationales and concentrate on communication and information networks as a public good, where not only access to infrastructure but also access to content may be essential.

Colors in Mind: A Novel Paradigm to Investigate Pure Color Imagery

Mental color imagery abilities are commonly measured using paradigms that involve naming, judging, or comparing the colors of visual mental images of well-known objects (e.g., “Is a sunflower darker yellow than a lemon”?). Although this approach is widely used in patient studies, differences in the ability to perform such color comparisons might simply reflect participants’ general knowledge of object colors rather than their ability to generate accurate visual mental images of the colors of the objects. The aim of the present study was to design a new color imagery paradigm. Participants were asked to visualize a color for 3 s and then to determine a visually presented color by pressing 1 of 6 keys. The authors reasoned that participants would react faster when the imagined and perceived colors were congruent than when they were incongruent. In Experiment 1, participants were slower in incongruent than congruent trials but only when they were instructed to visualize the colors. The results in Experiment 2 demonstrate that the congruency effect reported in Experiment 1 cannot be attributed to verbalization of the color that had to be visualized. Finally, in Experiment 3, the congruency effect evoked by mental imagery correlated with performance in a perceptual version of the task. The authors discuss these findings with respect to the mechanisms that underlie mental imagery and patients suffering from color imagery deficits.

Expected impact of applying new 2013 AHA/ACC cholesterol guidelines criteria on the recommended lipid target achievement after acute coronary syndromes.

BACKGROUND 2013 AHA/ACC guidelines on the treatment of cholesterol advised to tailor high-intensity statin after ACS, while previous ATP-III recommended titration of statin to reach low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) targets. We simulated the impact of this change of paradigm on the achievement of recommended targets. METHODS Among a prospective cohort study of consecutive patients hospitalized for ACS from 2009 to 2012 at four Swiss university hospitals, we analyzed 1602 patients who survived one year after recruitment. Targets based on the previous guidelines approach was defined as (1) achievement of LDL-C target < 1.8 mmol/l, (2) reduction of LDL-C ≥ 50% or (3) intensification of statin in patients who did not reach LDL-C targets. Targets based on the 2013 AHA/ACC guidelines approach was defined as the maximization of statin therapy at high-intensity in patients aged ≤75 years and moderate- or high-intensity statin in patients >75 years. RESULTS 1578 (99%) patients were prescribed statin at discharge, with 1120 (70%) at high-intensity. 1507 patients (94%) reported taking statin at one year, with 909 (57%) at high-intensity. Among 482 patients discharged with sub-maximal statin, intensification of statin was only observed in 109 patients (23%). 773 (47%) patients reached the previous LDL-C targets, while 1014 (63%) reached the 2013 AHA/ACC guidelines targetsone year after ACS (p value < 0.001). CONCLUSION The application of the new 2013 AHA/ACC guidelines criteria would substantially increase the proportion of patients achieving recommended lipid targets one year after ACS. Clinical trial number, NCT01075868.