The term first responders usually refers to law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical personnel. These responders, however, are not the only assets that may be required in the aftermath of a strike on the homeland. In contrast, the more appropriate term, emergency responders, comprises all personnel within a community that might be needed in the event of a natural or technological (man-made) disaster or terrorist incident. These responders might include hazardous materials response teams, urban search and rescue assets, community emergency response teams, anti-terrorism units, special weapons and tactics teams, bomb squads, emergency management officials, municipal agencies, and private organizations responsible for transportation, communications, medical services, public health, disaster assistance, public works, and construction. In addition, professional responders and volunteers, private nonprofit, nongovernmental groups (NGOs), such as the Red Cross, can also play an important role in emergency response. As a result, the tasks that a national emergency response system would be required to perform are more complex than simply aiding victims at the scene of a disaster, carried out by several kinds of professional users with different roles and expertise. Moreover, emergency preparedness and response lifecycle is a complex process that consists of the preparation, response, and recovery from a disaster, including planning, logistical support, maintenance and diagnostics, training, and management as well as supporting the actual activities at a disaster site and post-recovery after the incident.

SESAME targets innovations around three central elements in 5G: the placement of network intelligence and applications in the network edge through Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and Edge Cloud Computing; the substantial evolution of the Small Cell concept, already mainstream in 4G but expected to deliver its full potential in the challenging high dense 5G scenarios; and the consolidation of multi-tenancy in communications infrastructures, allowing several operators/service providers to engage in new sharing models of both access capacity and edge computing capabilities. SESAME proposes the Cloud-Enabled Small Cell (CESC) concept, a new multi-operator enabled Small Cell that integrates a virtualised execution platform (i.e., the Light DC) for deploying Virtual Network Functions (NVFs), supporting powerful self-x management and executing novel applications and services inside the access network infrastructure. The Light DC will feature low-power processors and hardware accelerators for time critical operations and will build a high manageable clustered edge computing infrastructure. This approach will allow new stakeholders to dynamically enter the value chain by acting as 'host-neutral' providers in high traffic areas where densification of multiple networks is not practical. The optimal management of a CESC deployment is a key challenge of SESAME, for which new orchestration, NFV management, virtualisation of management views per tenant, self-x features and radio access management techniques will be developed. After designing, specifying and developing the architecture and all the involved CESC modules, SESAME will culminate with a prototype with all functionalities for proving the concept in relevant use cases. Besides, CESC will be formulated consistently and synergistically with other 5G-PPP components through coordination with the corresponding projects.

The need for levels of availability and scalability beyond those supported by relational databases has led to the emergence of a new generation of purpose-specific databases grouped under the term NoSQL. In general, NoSQL databases are designed with horizontal scalability as a primary concern and deliver increased availability and fault-tolerance at a cost of temporary inconsistency and reduced durability of data. To balance the requirements for data consistency and availability, organisations increasingly migrate towards hybrid data persistence architectures comprising both relational and NoSQL databases. The consensus is that this trend will only become stronger in the future; critical data will continue to be stored in ACID (predominately relational) databases while non-critical data will be progressively migrated to high-availability NoSQL databases. Moreover, as the volume and the value of natural language content constantly grows, built-in support for sophisticated text processing in data persistence architectures is increasingly becoming essential. The aim of TYPHON is to provide a methodology and an integrated technical offering for designing, developing, querying and evolving scalable architectures for persistence, analytics and monitoring of large volumes of hybrid (relational, graph-based, document-based, natural language etc.) data. TYPHON brings together research partners with a long track record of conducting internationally-leading research on software modelling, domain-specific languages, text mining and data migration, and of delivering research results in the form of robust and widely-used open-source software, industrial partners active in the automotive, earth observation, banking, and motorway operation domains, an industrial advisory board of world-class experts in the fields of databases, business intelligence and analytics, and large-scale data management, and a global consortium including more than 400 organisations from all sectors of IT.

The 6G-EWOC project aims to contribute to the development of future 6G-AI based networks by ending with TRL-4-level developments on critical technologies and devices for expanding the reach of 6G, especially in high mobility scenarios. It is addressing Key Societal Value indicators (KVI) defined by the Work Programme and developing KV enablers such as services for coordination, precise positioning and localization, multi-agent supporting network architecture and joint communication and sensing. The three ambitions of 6G-EWOC focus on: AMB1, Optical Wireless Communications (OWC) for V2V and high-rate (Gb/s) V2I applications, chip-scale optical beamformers, and developing connected laser/radio detection, ranging, and communication (Lidar/Radar). AMB2, PIC and ASIC for tuneable transmitter and receiver concepts for fiber-based fronthaul supporting 50 Gbps and 100 Gbps per wavelength over DWDM fiber links and SDN-enabled photonic switching. AMB3 focuses on AI-assisted control and orchestration of resources for the multi-band, heterogeneous 6G-EWOC network concept and AI-based applications development for autonomous vehicles. Up to 17 KPIs are expected to be validated at three final demonstrations. In conclusion, 6G-EWOC search to develop an AI-enhanced fibre-wireless optical 6G network in support of connected mobility by creating a new access network for high mobility scenarios and expanding the reach of 6G through the integration of optical and wireless technologies, free space optics, and joint communication and sensing. It is supported by a fast, reconfigurable, highly dynamic, and customizable optical fiber fronthaul infrastructure, minimizing optoelectronic transitions by tuneable and programmable devices and low energy photonic switching of (packet/optical) spectrum and spatial resources, controlled by AI-based SDN. Providing end-to-end connectivity between AI-based edge computation units supporting connected mobility in a fast reconfigurable network architecture.

Future wireless networks (FWNs) will need to efficiently and flexibly provide diversified services such as enhanced mobile broadband access, ultra-reliable low-latency communications (URLLC), and massive machine-type communications . RECOMBINE joins the scientific excellence and expertise of key academic and industrial players into a joint collaborative effort to build the framework for the design oif FWNs beyond 5G that are able to support multiple operational standards for exploitation of intrinsic network heterogeneity; capable of processing information generated from a huge volume of heterogeneous sources and with sufficient intrinsic resilience to counter potential security threats. RECOMBINE will pursue innovations for advancing in the areas of mm-wave technology, licensed spectrum access, antenna design, channel propagation and modeling, and network prediction and quality of experience supported by artifical intelligence. In addition, RECOMBINE will integrate scientific and business model innovations for building a framework to fulfill the economic potential of FWNs.