The endocannabinoid system (ECS) plays a very important role in the human body for our survival. This is due to its ability to play a critical role in maintaining the homeostasis of the human body, which encompasses the brain, endocrine, and immune system, to name a few. ECS is a unique system in multiple dimensions. To begin with, it is a retrograde system functioning post- to pre-synapse, allowing it to be a “master regulator” in the body. Secondly, it has a very wide scope of influence due to an abundance of cannabinoid receptors located anywhere from immune cells to neurons. Finally, cannabinoids are rapidly synthesized and degraded, so they do not stay in the body for very long in high amounts, possibly enabling cannabinoid therapy to be a safer alternative to opioids or benzodiazepines.

The confocal laser fluorescence microscope (CLFM) enables viewing fluorescing objects and creating 3D images by optical sectioning. The CLFM can potentially be used to view, count, and analyze oil droplets, which have naturally fluorescing properties, by image processing techniques. However, many factors, including sample oil concentration, number of optical sections per stack, quantity and location of stacks, and threshold value for grayscale to binary image processing affect the intensity of fluorescence in the images produced and the oil concentration that is calculated. This study aims to establish patterns between these variables and a methodology to accurately calculate oil concentrations.

The main aim of the World Hope Index (WHI) is to help readers understand that hope can be perceived as a social product. This has been done through creating an index and quantifying Hope levels for 131 countries around the world for 2017. The paper also attempts to move the discourse of measuring human welfare and prosperity forward, from GDP growth rate and the Human Development Index to a new form of measure, being the World Hope Index.