The United Nations (UN) held activities to celebrate its 80th founding anniversary on Friday in New York, as October 24 also marks the UN Day.
This year also marks the 80th anniversary of the UN Charter's entry into force.
UN staff organized a series of activities to mark this day. These included a staff market selling distinctive items and food from various countries to raise funds for humanitarian aid.
Staff from different countries also wore their national costumes and held a small parade inside the UN Headquarters building. Various musical performances were put up throughout the UN complex.
On the same day, the UN Security Council also held a high-level debate themed " The United Nations Organization: looking into the future."
Despite facing numerous challenges, representatives from multiple countries reiterated the UN's importance and its future role at interviews before the conference.
"It is indeed a memorable today. It's the UN Day. It goes without saying that China always attach great importance to its role and always supports the UN in playing its core role in international affairs," said Fu Cong, China's Permanent Representative to UN.
"The UN has been created to promote peace and security, human rights, human development. We have to work very hard on that and we have a good agenda for that, so we have to devote all our efforts to it," said Jerome Bonnafont, France's permanent representative to UN.
"The future is [important] for the UN and we have to reconfirm it is indispensable," said Vasily Nebenzya, Russia's permanent representative to UN.
"We should stand united for peace, prosperity and progress of all the nations," said Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan's permanent representative to UN.
The UN has started the "UN80 Initiative" reform plan. Amid the current intertwined international challenges and impacts on multilateralism, there is hope that this reform will revitalize multilateralism, make the UN more effective, and create a better future for humanity.
As the first country that signed the UN Charter, China firmly supports multilateralism and upholds the UN-centered international system. Over the next 80 years, China will continue contributing wisdom and strength to reforming and improving global governance.
UN holds events to mark 80th founding anniversary
UN holds events to mark 80th founding anniversary
Researchers from the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have made new progress in invasive brain-computer interface clinical trials, with the second successful case involving a paralyzed patient.
According to the research team, the patient suffered a spinal cord injury in 2022 that resulted in high paraplegia. After more than a year of rehabilitation, only head and neck movement was possible. In June this year, the patient underwent implantation of a BCI system.
Following two to three weeks of training, the patient was able to control electronic devices such as a computer cursor and a tablet. To meet further needs, researchers expanded the application from two-dimensional digital screens to three-dimensional physical devices. An intelligent wheelchair and a robotic dog became new control targets.
This shift required the system to not only decode simple intentions such as "left" or "right," but also to deliver continuous, stable, and low-latency precise control to cope with complex real-world environments and interactive tasks.
According to an expert, as the patient became more proficient, the level of mental concentration required was significantly reduced.
"The experience is very close to how we normally control our own bodies. Once you are very skilled, it doesn't require much mental effort -- just like being able to chat while driving," said Zhao Zhengtuo, researcher from CEBSIT.
To achieve this, the team made multiple technical breakthroughs.
At the data source level, they developed high-compression, high-fidelity neural data compression technology and innovatively combined different compression methods. This allows effective information to be extracted efficiently even in noisy neural signal environments, improving overall brain-control performance by 15 to 20 percent.
The team also replaced traditional calibration methods with an "online recalibration" technology that silently and continuously fine-tunes decoding parameters in real time to maintain high system performance. Control speed has also been significantly improved, with intentions and actions now almost synchronized.
Notably, the research team has partnered with a local federation for persons with disabilities to enable the patient who can control a computer via the BCI to participate in online data annotation work, such as verifying the accuracy of AI recognition in vending machines. This makes the patient China's first paraplegic to earn income through labor using a brain-computer interface.
Researchers revealed that a third patient has now had a BCI implanted for nearly two months. Future applications will focus on more refined movements.
"[The next step is] to use the intention of finger movements to control robotic fingers to interact with the external world," said Poo Mu-ming, scientific director of CEBSIT, and also a CAS academician.
Chinese researchers complete 2nd successful case in invasive brain-computer interface trial in Shanghai
