6G Vision, Value, Use Cases and Technologies from European 6G Flagship Project Hexa-X

While 5G is being deployed and the economy and society begin to reap the associated benefits, the research and development community starts to focus on the next, 6th Generation (6G) of wireless communications. Although there are papers available in the literature on visions, requirements and technical enablers for 6G from various academic perspectives, there is a lack of joint industry and academic work towards 6G. In this paper a consolidated view on vision, values, use cases and key enabling technologies from leading industry stakeholders and academia is presented. The authors represent the mobile communications ecosystem with competences spanning hardware, link layer and networking aspects, as well as standardization and regulation. The second contribution of the paper is revisiting and analyzing the key concurrent initiatives on 6G. A third contribution of the paper is the identification and justification of six key 6G research challenges: (i) “connecting”, in the sense of empowering, exploiting and governing, intelligence; (ii) realizing a network of networks, i.e., leveraging on existing networks and investments, while reinventing roles and protocols where needed; (iii) delivering extreme experiences, when/where needed; (iv) (environmental, economic, social) sustainability to address the major challenges of current societies; (v) trustworthiness as an ingrained fundamental design principle; (vi) supporting cost-effective global service coverage. A fourth contribution is a comprehensive specification of a concrete first-set of industry and academia jointly defined use cases for 6G, e.g., massive twinning, cooperative robots, immersive telepresence, and others. Finally, the anticipated evolutions in the radio, network and management/orchestration domains are discussed

Cell Origin of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Determines a Different Healing Performance in Cardiac Regeneration

The possible different therapeutic efficacy of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) derived from umbilical cord blood (CB), adipose tissue (AT) or bone marrow (BM) for the treatment of myocardial infarction (MI) remains unexplored. This study was to assess the regenerative potential of hMSC from different origins and to evaluate the role of CD105 in cardiac regeneration. Male SCID mice underwent LAD-ligation and received the respective cell type (400.000/per animal) intramyocardially. Six weeks post infarction, cardiac catheterization showed significant preservation of left ventricular functions in BM and CD105+-CB treated groups compared to CB and nontreated MI group (MI-C). Cell survival analyzed by quantitative real time PCR for human GAPDH and capillary density measured by immunostaining showed consistent results. Furthermore, cardiac remodeling can be significantly attenuated by BM-hMSC compared to MI-C. Under hypoxic conditions in vitro, remarkably increased extracellular acidification and apoptosis has been detected from CB-hMSC compared to BM and CD105 purified CB-derived hMSC. Our findings suggests that hMSC originating from different sources showed a different healing performance in cardiac regeneration and CD105+ hMSC exhibited a favorable survival pattern in infarcted hearts, which translates into a more robust preservation of cardiac function

Prenatal exposures to mixtures of endocrine disrupting chemicals and children's weight trajectory up to age 5.5 in the SELMA study

Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) may impact early growth, although information is limited on exposure to combination of multiple EDCs. We aimed to evaluate the effect of prenatal exposure to EDC mixtures on birthweight z-scores and childhood weight trajectories. Twenty-six proven and suspected EDCs, were analyzed in prenatal urine and blood samples from 1118 mothers participating in the Swedish Environmental Longitudinal Mother and child Asthma and allergy (SELMA) study. Two growth parameters were estimated from each child's weight trajectory from birth to 5.5 years of age: infant growth spurt rate and age at infant peak growth velocity (PGV). Weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression was used to estimate the mixture effect and identify chemicals of concern. A one-unit increase in the EDC mixture WQS index, was associated with decreased birthweight z-scores of 0.11 (95% CI - 0.16, - 0.06), slower infant growth spurt rate of 0.01 (95% CI - 0.03, - 0.01, on the log(10) scale), and delayed age at infant PGV of 0.15 months (95% CI 0.07, 0.24) after adjusting for potential confounders. Stratified analysis by sex, showed that delayed age at infant PGV was mostly observed in girls with 0.51 months (95% CI 0.26, 0.76). Identified chemicals of concern included perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), Triclosan, phthalates, non-phthalate plasticizers, bisphenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides and PCBs. Prenatal exposure to EDC mixtures was associated with lower birthweight and altered infant weight gain trajectories