Could Cannabis Cure Professor Ramos Blog

Could Cannabis Cure FDA Approves CBD Drug Epidiolex This video titled â€Å"FDA Approves CBD Drug Epidiolex† by Dean, from the YouTube channel called CBD School, was very informational and easy to understand and I gave it 8 out of 10 stars. It informs the viewer that a new cannabidiol (CBD) based medicine derived from the marijuana plant called Epidiolex was just approved by the FDA. It was developed by GW Pharmaceuticals to mainly treat two rare forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. These two types of epilepsy are frequently resistant to treatment yet cannabidiol has been showing promising signs for treatment. This approval will help not only the patients with this condition but also the cannabidiol industry as well to get more credible in the modern world of medicine. This video gave enough information for anyone to get a grasp of the main idea so then after it they could even watch more videos he has made or go look to the research itself. His demeanor was a little bit stiff yet he spoke clearly. He tried to repeat his topics so that we would not forget them during the middle of it which was helpful as well as talked about other cannabis products to plug his other videos into this one. That was a smart move because then you want to continue watching. Again, this video was 8 out of 10 stars and the only reason it got two below perfect was that it didn’t explain the scheduling for the DEA that much or about cannabidiol itself. So in addition to this video, here is some information I have gathered to piece the video together a bit more for those who don’t quite understand everything he is saying. First I want to explain what epilepsy is for those who have never heard of it or know very little about it. In an article about cannabidiol and epilepsy it defines epilepsy as, â€Å"uncontrolled seizures, which can be associated with poor quality of life and mental illness† which effects roughly 50 million people worldwide (Ali, Scheffer Sadleir 1). Yet as Ali et al. states, â€Å"The most severe group of childhood epilepsies are the developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs)†¦ devastating disorders are defined by frequent seizures and epileptiform abnormalities that result in severe cognitive and behavioral impairment† with about 24% of them dying within 20 years of being diagnosed (1). Dravet syndrome is a prototypic DEE so it stems from the more severe group of epilepsies which makes it harder to treat with regular antiepileptic drugs. In the results of one of the main studies of Epidiolex that was approved by the FDA reveals that, â€Å"This randomi zed, controlled trial showed that cannabidiol resulted in a greater reduction in convulsive seizure frequency than placebo among children and young adults with drug-resistant Dravet syndrome† (Devinsky, Ottin, et al., 2018). This is great news because it shows that these drug resistant syndromes have a weakness. Also, it is the small victories with cannabidiol that could lead to the rescheduling of this plant so we can find other medicinal ways that it could help the world. Now since the cannabis plant is still considered a Schedule One drug it was hard to get the FDA, let alone the DEA, to approve any medicine that was derived from this plant. What a does it mean to be a Schedule One drug? Well on the DEA website it states, â€Å"Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote†. With the studies that have been proving that the cannabis plant has medicinal values it was only a matter of time before the FDA and DEA had to reconsider this scheduling. For those who do not know what cannabidiol is, let me give you a little background information. In an article about the safety and side effects of cannabidiol it states, â€Å"In contrast to D9-THC, it is nonintoxicating, but exerts a number of beneficial pharmacological effects. For instance, it is anxiolytic, anti-inflammatory, antiemetic, and antipsychotic. Moreover, neuroprotective properties have been shown†¦ could be used at high doses for the treatment of a variety of conditions ranging in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and dementia, as well as diabetes and nausea† (Iffland Franjo 139) In other words, cannabidiol has been shown to have medically beneficial properties as well as being non-psychoactive. What that means is that unlike the tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, it does not get you â€Å"high†. Regarding this information it is easy to see why to most want to utilize this part of the cannabis plant for its medicinal purposes and why GW Pharmaceu ticals did just that. On their website it states, â€Å"GW has established a world leading position in the development of plant-derived cannabinoid therapeutics through its proven drug discovery and development processes, intellectual property portfolio and regulatory and manufacturing expertise†¦was founded in 1998 and is listed on the NASDAQ Global Market (GWPH). The company has operations in both the US and the UK†. With this company gaining recognition, I hope to see more products from them that could be used by others without epilepsy as well. Hopefully videos like this will help to keep spreading the word about all the medically beneficial ways that cannabis can help the world. That is another reason why I gave it such a high rating. Usually when you watch videos about cannabis, the person in it could be intoxicated from the THC and may not get to the point they are trying to make. In regards to this one I think he set a great example of how informational videos about cannabis should be. Easy to hear and easy to understand. Thanks Dean for the info! WORKS CITED: Ali, Shayma, Ingrid E. Scheffer, and Lynette G. Sadleir. Efficacy of cannabinoids in paediatric epilepsy.  Developmental Medicine Child Neurology  (2018). Devinsky, Orrin, et al. Trial of cannabidiol for drug-resistant seizures in the Dravet syndrome.  New England Journal of Medicine  376.21 (2017): 2011-2020. Iffland, Kerstin, and Franjo Grotenhermen. An update on safety and side effects of cannabidiol: a review of clinical data and relevant animal studies.  Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research  2.1 (2017): 139-154. Wise, Jacqui. FDA approves its first cannabis based medicine. (2018): k2827. â€Å"Drug Scheduling.†Ã‚  DEA, www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling. â€Å"About Us.†Ã‚  GW Pharmaceuticals, Plc, gwpharm.com/about.

Programming Languages Comparison

Programming Languages Comparison Since the 1950s, computer scientists have devised thousands of programming languages. Many are obscure, perhaps created for a Ph.D. thesis and never heard of since. Others became popular for a while then faded due to lack of support or because they were limited to a particular computer system. Some are variants of existing languages, adding new features like parallelism- the ability to run many parts of a program on different computers in parallel. Read more about What is a programming language? Comparing Programming Languages There are several ways to compare computer Languages but for simplicity, well compare them by Compilation Method and Abstraction Level. Compiling to Machine Code Some languages require programs to be transformed directly into Machine Code- the instructions that a CPU understands directly. This transformation process is called compilation. Assembly Language, C, C, and Pascal are compiled languages. Interpreted Languages Other languages are either Interpreted such as Basic, Actionscript, and Javascript, or a mixture of both being compiled to an intermediate language - this includes Java and C#. An Interpreted language is processed at runtime. Every line is read, analyzed, and executed. Having to reprocess a line every time in a loop is what makes interpreted languages so slow. This overhead means that interpreted code runs between 5 - 10 times slower than compiled code. The interpreted languages like Basic or JavaScript are the slowest. Their advantage is not needing to be recompiled after changes and that is handy when youre learning to program. Because compiled programs almost always run faster than interpreted, languages such as C and C tend to be the most popular for writing games. Java and C# both compile to an interpreted language which is very efficient. Because the Virtual Machine that interprets Java and the .NET framework that runs C# are heavily optimized, its claimed that applications in those languages are as fast if not faster as compiled C. Level of Abstraction The other way to compare languages is level of abstraction. This indicates how close a particular language is to the hardware. Machine Code is the lowest level,  with Assembly Language just above it. C is higher than C because C offers greater abstraction. Java and C# are higher than C because they compile to an intermediate language called bytecode. How Languages Compare Fast Compiled Languages Assembly LanguageCCPascalC#Java Reasonably Fast Interpreted PerlPHP Slow Interpreted JavaScriptActionScriptBasic Machine Code is the instructions that a  CPU  executes. Its the only thing that a CPU can understand and execute.  Interpreted  languages need an application called an  Interpreter  that reads each line of the program source code and then runs it. Interpreting Is Easier Its very easy to stop, change and re-run applications written in an interpreted language and that is why theyre popular for learning programming. There is no compilation stage needed. Compiling can be quite a slow process. A large Visual C application can take from minutes to hours to compile, depending on how much code has to be rebuilt and the speed of memory and the  CPU. When Computers First Appeared When computers first became popular in the 1950s, programs were written in machine code as there was no other way. Programmers had to physically flip switches to enter values. This is such a tedious and slow way of creating an application that higher level computer languages had to be created. Assembler: Fast to Run- Slow to Write! Assembly language is the readable version of Machine Code and looks like this Mov A,$45 Because it is tied to a particular CPU or family of related CPUs, Assembly Language is not very  portable  and is time-consuming to learn and write. Languages like C have reduced the need for Assembly Language programming except where RAM is limited or time-critical code is needed. This is typically in the  kernel  code at the heart of an Operating System or in a video card driver. Assembly Language Is the Lowest Level of Code Assembly Language is very low level; most of the code just moves values between the  CPU  registers and memory. If you are writing a payroll package you want to think in terms of salaries and tax deductions, not  Register  A to Memory location XYZ. This is why higher level languages like C,  C#  or  Java  are more productive. The programmer can think in terms of the problem domain (salaries, deductions, and accruals) not the hardware domain (registers, memory, and instructions). Systems Programming With C C was devised in the early 1970s by Dennis Ritchie. It can be thought of as a general purpose tool- very useful and powerful but very easy to let bugs through that can make systems insecure. C is a low-level language and has been described as portable Assembly language. The syntax of many scripting  languages is based on C, for example,  JavaScript, PHP, and ActionScript. Perl: Websites and Utilities Very popular in the  Linux  world, Perl was one of the first web languages and remains very popular today. For doing quick and dirty programming on the web it remains unrivaled and drives many websites. It has though been somewhat eclipsed by  PHP as a web scripting language. Coding Websites With PHP PHP  was designed as a language for Web Servers and is very popular in conjunction with Linux, Apache, MySql, and PHP or LAMP for short. It is interpreted, but pre-compiled so code executes reasonably quickly. It can be run on desktop computers but is not as widely used for developing desktop applications. Based on C  syntax, it also includes  Objects  and Classes. Pascal  was devised as a teaching language a few years before C but was very limited with poor string and file handling. Several Manufacturers extended the language but there was no overall leader until Borlands Turbo Pascal (for Dos) and Delphi (for Windows) appeared. These were powerful implementations that added enough functionality to make them suitable for commercial development. However, Borland was up against the much bigger Microsoft and lost the battle. C: A Classy Language! C or C plus classes as it was originally known came about ten years after C and successfully introduced Object Oriented Programming to C, as well as features like exceptions and templates. Learning all of C is a big task- it is by far the most complicated of the programming languages here but once you have mastered it, youll have no difficulty with any other language. C#: Microsofts Big Bet C#  was created by  Delphis architect Anders Hejlsberg after he moved to Microsoft and Delphi developers will feel at home with features such as Windows forms. C#  syntax  is very similar to  Java, which is not surprising as Hejlsberg also worked on J after he moved to Microsoft. Learn C# and you are well on the way to knowing  Java. Both languages are semi-compiled so that instead of compiling to machine code, they compile to  bytecode  ( C# compiles to  CIL  but it and Bytecode are similar) and are then  interpreted. Javascript: Programs in Your Browser Javascript  is nothing like Java, instead, its a  scripting  language based on C syntax but with the addition of  Objects  and is used mainly in browsers. JavaScript is interpreted and a lot slower than  compiled  code but works well within a browser. Invented by Netscape it has proved very successful and after several years in the doldrums is enjoying a new lease of life because of  AJAX; Asynchronous Javascript and XML. This allows parts of web pages to update from the server without redrawing the entire page. ActionScript: A Flashy Language! ActionScript  is an implementation of JavaScript but exists solely within Macromedia Flash applications.  Using vector-based graphics, it is used mainly for games, playing videos and other visual effects and for developing sophisticated user interfaces, all running in the browser. Basic for Beginners Basic  is an acronym for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code and was created to teach programming in the 1960s. Microsoft has made the language their own with many different versions including VBScript for websites and the very successful  Visual Basic. The latest version of that is VB.NET and this runs on the same platform  .NET  as C# and produces the same CIL bytecode. Lua is a free scripting language written in C that includes garbage collection and coroutines. It interfaces well with C/C and is used in the games industry (and non-games as well) to script game logic, event triggers, and game control. Conclusion While everyone has their favorite language and has invested time and resources in learning how to program it, there are some problems that are best solved with the right language. E.G you wouldnt use C for writing web apps and you wouldnt write an Operating System in Javascript. But whichever language you choose, if its C, C or C#, at least you know youre in the right place to learn it.