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This white paper is one of the twelve new themed 6G White Papers led by the 6G Flagship program. It involved the participation of more than 50 experts and enthusiasts of future 6G technologies. In this white paper, we intend to shed light on advanced features relevant to networking that would shape the evolution beyond 5G, ultimately leading to the 6G mobile system.

Background: This study assessed a pediatric mixed hexavalent diphtheria (D)-tetanus (T)-acellular pertussis (aP)-inactivated poliovirus (IPV)-hepatitis B (HB)-Haemophilus influenzae b [polyribosylribitol phosphate (PRP-T)]-pentavalent (DTaP-IPV//PRP-T)-hexavalent primary series schedule followed by a pentavalent booster. Methods: Healthy infants (N = 265) who had received a prior HB vaccination received a fully liquid, hexavalent vaccine (DTaP-IPV-HB-PRP-T) at 2 and 6 months of age and a reconstituted pentavalent vaccine (DTaP-IPV//PRP-T) at 4 months of age. Coadministered vaccines were pneumococcal vaccine at 2 and 4 months (and optionally at 6 months of age), rotavirus vaccine at 2, 4, 6 months and meningococcal serogroup C vaccine at 2 months. At 18 months, participants received DTaP-IPV//PRP-T and pneumococcal vaccine boosters. Immunogenicity was assessed using validated assays and safety by parental reports. Results: For the hexavalent and pentavalent vaccines, the primary series and booster immune responses in terms of seroprotection and vaccine response rates were high for all antigens (generally > 99% and > 95% for the primary series and booster, respectively) and prebooster antibody persistence was good for all antigens (in particular, 92.4% of participants had prebooster anti-HB antibody >= 10 mIU/mL). The incidence of solicited reactions was lower after the booster vaccination (56.9%-73.1%) than the primary series (76.6%-97.4%); there were few vaccine-related unsolicited adverse events (1.9% and 1.5% for the primary series and booster, respectively), none led to participant discontinuation and none was serious. Conclusions: This study provides data that allow recommending authorities to consider the use of a sequential hexavalent-pentavalent-hexavalent primary vaccination series followed by a pentavalent booster in coadministration with other common childhood vaccines.

Palliative care must be early applied to all types of advanced chronic and life limited prognosis patients, present in all health and social services. Patients' early identification and registry allows introducing palliative care gradually concomitant with other measures. Patients undergo a systematic and integrated care process, meant to improve their life quality, which includes multidimensional assessment of their needs, recognition of their values and preferences for advance care planning purposes, treatments review, family care, and case management. Leaded by the National Department of Health, a program for the early identification of these patients has been implemented in Catalonia (Spain). Although the overall benefits expected, the program has raised some ethical issues. In order to address these challenges, diverse institutions, including bioethics and ethics committees, have elaborated a proposal for the program's advantages. This paper describes the process of evaluation, elaboration of recommendations, and actions done in Catalonia.

Resumen El analisis de la viremia en la infeccion por el virus de la hepatitis A (VHA) mediante los metodos convencionales es poco utilizado debido a que la determinacion viral se realiza habitualmente en heces y a que las tecnicas empleadas son laboriosas y tienen baja rentabilidad diagnostica. Los objetivos de este trabajo son el desarrollo de un metodo de amplificacion genica y Southern blot para la deteccion de ARNVHA en el suero de los pacientes con infeccion aguda y relacionar la presencia de ARN-VHA con la deteccion de anticuerpos anti-VHA de tipo IgM y los valores de la alanina aminotransferasa (ALT). El ARN-VHA se ha estudiado en 26 muestras de suero de 21 pacientes con hepatitis aguda A, en 11 muestras de pacientes con hepatitis aguda B y en 15 con hepatitis aguda no A, no E. El ARN-VHA se detecto en 10 (38%) de las 26 muestras de suero de pacientes con hepatitis aguda A. En cinco muestras fue positivo por la tecnica de reaccion en cadena de la polimerasa (PCR) simple y en 10 mediante la tecnica de PCR-Southern blot. El ARN-VHA fue positivo en el 100% de las muestras de suero obtenidas en la primera semana de la sintomatologia clinica, en el 50% de las muestras de la segunda semana y no se detecto en ninguna de las muestras obtenidas posteriormente. No se detecto ARN-VHA en ninguno de los 11 casos de hepatitis aguda B ni de los 15 de hepatitis aguda no A, no E. No se observo una relacion significativa entre la deteccion de ARN-VHA y el grado de positividad de los anticuerpos anti-VHA de tipo IgM, pero si en cambio con el aumento de la ALT. En conclusion, la presencia de ARN-VHA en la hepatitis aguda A es frecuente, pero su deteccion es transitoria durante las primeras 2 semanas del inicio de la sintomatologia clinica y requiere de una tecnica de amplificacion genica y Southern blot.

Background: Catenins are adhesion molecules that link cadherin molecules to cytoskeleton. The association of catenins to cadherins is a key step in the function of intact adhesion complexes, and alterations in catenin molecules can lead to the disruption of cell-cell adhesion, resulting in tumour aggressiveness and invasiveness in neoplastic disease. Material and methods: Urothelial lesions were chemically induced by BBN in ICR mice, and evaluated by immunohistochemistry to determine the staining pattern of β-cathenin. Results: In normal urothelium, 70% of β-catenin expression was at the cellular membrane level. In simple hyperplasia, the same pattern was observed in 66.67% of lesions. Nodular hyperplasia was observed only once with a membrane pattern. In dysplasia a 100% cytoplasmic pattern was seen. Invasive carcinoma showed an heterogeneous pattern with areas where the membrane, cytoplasm or nucleus were stained. On squamous metaplasia, the staining pattern was confined to the membrane, however, with heterogeneous immunoreactivity. Conclusions: β-cathenin is a good marker of the progression of bladder tumours chemically induced in mice by BBN. This work was supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, Center for Studies in Education, Technologies and by Health and by strategic project PEst-OE/CED/UI4016/2011

Wireless networks are extensively deployed due to their low cost and configuration easiness. However, they are not adapted to the new services and applications that are increasingly demanded by users. Current implementation of the IEEE 802.11 specification is supported in hardware devices and software developments, but they do not provide the adaptability that would enhance user experience in next generation networks. In this paper, we present a new wireless framework, based on the one currently supported by the Linux stack: mac80211. This new framework, named mac80211++, has been tailored to improve MAC features in terms of: (i) modularity, by defining different 802.11 MAC services; (ii) flexibility, by enabling dynamic configurability of the 802.11 MAC; (iii) virtualization, by managing parallel independent 802.11 MACs accessing the same system resources. TRUE pub

The future 4th generation IMT-Advanced standards for 3GPP and IEEE 802.16 are LTE-A and IEEE 802.16m, respectively. While at a detailed level IEEE 802.16m and 3GPP LTE-A seem to be significantly different, on a conceptual and functional level both technologies use similar approaches for medium access and radio resource management and are very similar at the PHY layer. In this paper, we analyse both technologies with the goal of finding common functional subsets which can be used as building blocks for a generic and extensible MAC for future mobile cellular networks. To this end, we propose a systematic categorization into services, interfaces, functions and primitives as a first step towards achieving generic architecture. TRUE pub

[Poster] ICT-MobileSummit 2009, 10-12 June 2009, Santander, Spain Providing carrier grade services to a large number of mobile users is becoming an important challenge for wireless network operators. One promising solution for offering cost-efficient alternatives compared to classical cellular approaches is the use of wireless mesh networks along with the use of heterogeneous radio technologies. In this paper we propose a MAC abstraction layer to lessen the management burden of heterogeneous radio technologies. This abstraction layer is intended to hide the complexity and specifics of different wireless interfaces, this way supporting the use of a single set of routing and capacity handling mechanisms. European Community's Seventh Framework Program The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement No 214994. Publicado

A sensitive and accurate HBV DNA quantification assay is essential for monitoring hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication. This study evaluated a real-time PCR method performed in the LightCycler analyser for quantitative HBV DNA assay. HBV DNA results with this method were compared with those obtained using a branched-chain DNA (bDNA) solution hybridization assay. Real-time PCR was performed using two adjacent fluorescently labelled probes and primers corresponding to the HBV core gene. The same standard employed in the bDNA assay was used for calibration. Serum samples came from 193 HBV surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive patients (34 HBV e antigen (HBeAg)-positive and 93 with antibody to HBeAg (anti-HBe)), and 66 asymptomatic HBV carriers. In addition, we analysed serum samples from 8 anti-HBe-positive patients who had been receiving lamivudine treatment for more than three years. A linear standard curve was seen in the range from 10(3) to 10(8) copies/mL. In the reproducibility analysis, intra-assay coefficient of variation (CVs) at two known HBV DNA concentrations were 4% and 2% and interassay CVs were 6% and 4%. The median of serum HBV DNA by real-time PCR was 9.2 x 10(8) copies/mL in HBeAg-positive patients with persistently elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, 1.3 x 10(7) copies/mL in anti-HBe-positive cases with persistently elevated ALT levels, 3.7 x 10(4) copies/mL in anti-HBe-positive patients with fluctuating ALT levels and 10(4) copies/mL in asymptomatic HBV carriers. The differences in HBV DNA levels among the various groups studied were statistically significant (P < 0.05). The cut-off between chronic hepatitis patients and asymptomatic carriers was found to be at a serum HBV DNA concentration of 5 x 10(4) copies/mL. Of the 109 serum samples with a viral load < 7.5 x 10(5) (negative by bDNA assay) 44 (40%) were positive by real-time PCR: 24 (56%) chronic hepatitis and 20 (33%) asymptomatic carriers. There was a positive association between HBV DNA levels determined by real-time PCR and ALT levels (P < 0.05), which was not observed with the bDNA assay for HBV DNA quantification. At 12 months of lamivudine treatment, 6 patients (75%) showed HBV DNA levels < 5 x 10(4) copies/mL (range < 10(3)-2 x 10(3)), significantly lower than at baseline. At 36 months, 2 of 8 (25%) showed HBV DNA levels persistently lower than 5 x 10(4) copies/mL (1.7 x 10(3), 6 x 10(3)). The LightCycler quantitative real-time PCR is a practical, sensitive, reproducible single-tube assay with a wide dynamic range of detection. The assay is automatic except for DNA extraction and the running time is only 70 min. The LightCycler real-time PCR is useful for identifying different states of HBV infection and for evaluating the efficacy of viral therapy.

Cyclosporin is a useful drug in several autoimmune diseases. It has been recently evaluated, with varying results, in several dermatoses such as pemphigus vulgaris. Three cases of this condition treated with cyclosporin are reported. The drug permitted to reduce and then to suppress prolonged corticosteroid therapy, and remission was maintained after exacerbation even in monotherapy. Hypertrichosis and gum hypertrophy were the common adverse effects.

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a severe and relatively common condition in parenteral drug abusers (PDA). Seventy-one IE episodes in 59 PDAs admitted to the Hospital General Vall d'Hebron from August 1978 to December 1988 were evaluated. The disease basically involved young males, with a progressively increasing incidence throughout the decade and a higher frequency during August. Fever was a constant symptom, with a duration of less than 10 days before admission in 73% of cases. Staphylococcus aureus was the most common pathogen (85% of episodes). Vegetations were detected by echocardiography in 70% of cases. In 82% of episodes the right side of the heart was involved, particularly the tricuspid valve. The initial chest X-ray film was abnormal in 57.5% of episodes. In 7 patients features of heart failure were present at admission; most had left heart endocarditis. Three patients with left heart endocarditis required surgical therapy. Overall mortality was 13%; it was 6% in patients with only tricuspid involvement and 27% when the left heart was involved.

The use of dried blood spot (DBS) specimens in quantitative alpha1-antitrypsin (alpha1-AT) detection or genetic analysis is limited because protein levels in the samples are low and they contain components that can interfere with polymerase chain reaction amplification. A methodological adaptation was developed to overcome these drawbacks which is discussed here. The study population consisted of 200 healthy volunteers and 300 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). DBS specimens were tested for alpha1-AT concentration using a modified nephelometric assay and phenotyped with an isoelectric focusing method. Genetic diagnosis was established by deoxyribonucleic acid sequencing using a simple purification procedure to remove contaminants. The nephelometric method showed a detection limit of 0.284 mg x dL(-1), corresponding to a serum concentration of 13 mg x dL(-1). The correlation coefficient between alpha1-AT concentrations in DBS versus serum samples was R2=0.8674 (p0.0001). All 200 healthy individuals had DBS alpha1-AT concentrations1.9 mg x dL(-1), corresponding to 114 mg x dL(-1) in serum samples. One hundred and twenty-five COPD patients (42%) showed alpha1-AT values1.8 mg x dL(-1). Twenty patients with the PIZ phenotype had alpha1-AT values lower than 0.64 mg x dL(-1). On the basis of genotyping, one COPD patient was classified as heterozygous (PIMM(heerlen)). Selective elution of contaminants resulted in optimal alpha(1)1-antitrypsin genotyping. Because of its sensitivity and excellent correlation with the standard method, the dried blood spot quantitative assay is a reliable tool for routine measurement of alpha1-antitrypsin.

The kidney diseases in patients with bacterial endocarditis and intravenous drug addicts (IVDA) tend to be of glomerular origin. Interstitial nephritis has been related to drug toxicity and only occasionally has it been described in other associations. We describe a 27-year-old patient IVDA with tricuspid endocarditis caused by S. Aureus whose first manifestations was acute renal failure. The renal biopsy showed an interstitial nephritis. It was treated with antibiotic and hemodialysis, obtaining the cure and normal levels of plasmatic creatinine.