ImageWare Systems, Inc. (OTCQB: IWSY) has set a March 30, 2017, conference call (http://dtn.fm/4j16M) for a corporate update on its fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2016. Results for those periods will be released prior to the call, which is scheduled for 5 p.m. (ET). Hosting the call will be Jim Miller, ImageWare chairman and CEO, and Wayne Wetherell, CFO.

The San Diego-based company designs cloud-based and mobile multi-modal biometric identity management solutions, including biometric authentication technology. Its biometrics are next generation and are interactive and scalable cloud-based solutions. The company offers multi-factor authentication for desktop devices, smartphones, and mobile clients. Its products include authentication by face, voice, fingerprint, eye, DNA, and more. It also develops access control tools.

ImageWare recently received the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for New Product Innovation. The award was presented in recognition of its GoVerifyID Enterprise Suite, which provides multi-modal biometric user identification as an end-to-end turnkey solution.

“This mobile/cloud SaaS (software as a service) offering is the industry’s first multi-modal biometric user authentication solution that allows customers to strengthen the security of their passwords or two-factor authentication using biometrics. Rather than typing a password, end users can speak a passphrase, swipe their fingerprints, or even take ‘selfies’ to gain access,” Frost & Sullivan noted in a news release.

It also cited ImageWare’s GoVerifyID Enterprise Suite, which is Windows Server certified. It noted that this product is device-agnostic and allows user authentication via the cloud. Additionally, Frost & Sullivan said, ImageWare has shown speed in response to market needs in the fast changing world of identity management.

For more information, refer to www.IWSInc.com

The foundation of Vertex Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ: VTNR) was laid by the employment of a 16-year-old Alabama teenager, with the result being that a multi-faceted environmental services company was eventually built upon the endeavors of that teenager. Roughly 30 years ago, Benjamin Cowart, now the CEO and chairman of Vertex, began work at his brother’s used oil collection business in Alabama. After 15 years of working, learning, and helping to build a successful business, he ventured out on his own and formed Vertex in 2001. Vertex Energy now collects and recycles used motor oil and other petroleum by-products, off-specification commercial chemicals, and multiple other industrial waste streams.

Vertex purchases used oil, industrial waste, and chemical products from a developed network of local and regional suppliers, known as street collection, and focuses resources on recycling a portion of its collected used motor oil and other petroleum products. Vertex also sells used petroleum products as feedstock to other re-refineries and fuel blenders or as replacement fuel for use in industrial burners.

The company’s Black Oil division operates across the entire used motor oil recycling spectrum. From used oil and petroleum product collection and aggregation, the company transports, stores, refines, and sells re-refined products to end users. The company’s Refining and Marketing division aggregates feedstock, re-refines it, and then sells the various products. The company’s Recovery division delivers solutions for the recovery and management of hydrocarbon streams.

Expanding feedstock, Vertex Energy has acquired several other used oil collection routes. At oil’s peak, Vertex Energy was paying local generators $1.00 per gallon for used motor oil, but, with the collapse in oil prices, Vertex was able to move from paying for used oil to charging for collection. Vertex has been challenged like others in the oil business but has targeted 2017 as the year for its collection acquisitions to play out.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, with facilities in Louisiana and Ohio, and offices in Illinois and Georgia, Vertex Energy has come a long way from that Alabama teenager.

For more information, please visit www.VertexEnergy.com

The modern career concept is going through core changes, as employees now enjoy the prospect of multi-decade-long careers but the half-life of skills is falling rapidly, according to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2017 report (http://dtn.fm/O9MiY). These new workplace realities are forcing companies to completely change the way they manage careers and to focus on delivering ongoing learning and development opportunities to their employees. Most companies have already shifted toward the digital learning model, where leading EdTech service providers such as ProBility Media Corp. (OTCQB: PBYA) are providing high-quality training courses and materials for career advancement and workforce excellence.

The Deloitte report shows that this year more than ever, executives are aware of the issue and are working hard to offer their employees continuous learning as a means to ensure business success. Compared to decades ago when employees learned to gain skills for developing a career, nowadays the career is a journey of learning where they push for continuous skill development and the ability to learn and progress.

A total of 83 percent of respondents in this year’s survey said their business was shifting toward open, flexible career models (http://dtn.fm/E1lHl) that offer employees more enriching experiences and assignments instead of the traditional, static progression, and this new learning and development model seems to pay off, the report underlines, as companies that offer dynamic career models actually outperform their counterparts by providing employees with continuous learning opportunities focused on their professional development and advancement.

It is with this goal in mind that leading education technology company ProBility Media Corp. is working to provide consistent high-quality online training to prepare the workforce for excellence. Servicing a wide range of customers, from small- and medium-sized businesses to enterprise level corporations, the Houston, Texas-based company is the first to offer full chain career advancement, basically creating the first full service career advancement and training brand in the technical fields.

With a focus on offering advanced training to individuals from graduation to career placement and beyond, ProBility Media has become a key resource of industrial training for customers in various trades, including engineering, electrical contracting, plumbing contracting and fabrication, and the company is already expanding into additional vocational industries with the same full chain of education, training and certification. The company’s business model is disrupting the industry by defragmenting a market that currently has multiple separate companies that service multiple verticals in more than 60 skilled trades.

Through its continued expansion via strategic acquisitions and organic growth, ProBility Media has now become one of the largest wholesalers of the national electric code through its division, National Electric Wholesale Providers. Through its construction training division, ProBility offers programs in 22 states with the goal of servicing all 50. The company’s platform includes virtual reality training opportunities for crane operators, which are likely to be applied to other fields as well, along with advisory services and online learning subscription services for enterprises, resulting in recurring revenue streams.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ProBilityMedia.com

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Late February, a study was released (http://dtn.fm/UEFx3) reviewing evidence that supports the use of cannabinoids to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a fatal illness that attacks the nerve cells that control voluntary muscles such as those in the face, arms, legs, and others.

Currently, ALS is treated with riluzole, a drug that controls neuronal signaling, but this drug does not cure the disease and can only slightly increase the chance of survival. With more effective therapeutic options needed to treat ALS, in-depth research has been done into the benefits of cannabinoids, the naturally occurring compounds found in the marijuana plant.

According to the article relating to the report, the cannabinoid system is involved in the pathology of ALS. A researcher shared that the data found proves that by editing CB2-mediated processes, it could change the progression of ALS and how much the endocannabinoid system could reduce excitotoxicity, neuroinflammation, and oxidative cell damage.

Testing on animals with ALS showed that cannabinoids have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective effects. It was also proven that cannabinoids can further delay the progression of the disease and prolong survival in these animals. Despite new cases of ALS being diagnosed each day, there are no obvious racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic boundaries associated with the disease.

With a shift in consumer, political, and legal views surrounding cannabis, as well as the current studies that are starting to show proof that CBD can help treat a variety of diseases, demand for CBD oil is on the rise across the globe. Companies such as ChineseInvestors.com (OTCQB: CIIX) are launching CBD health products in order to meet this growing demand.

Although China maintains its stance that cannabis is illegal both medically and recreationally, using CBD oil for medical purposes is allowed. As a result, ChineseInvestors.com is now launching the first CBD health products store in China and aims to be the first-ever provider of CBD oil products to customers in mainland China, and to Chinese speaking people in the United States and Canada.

The company aims to help people with diseases such as ALS by offering high-quality products that are both natural and legal, using compounds found in the cannabis plant that are not psychoactive. With the valid rationale to suggest the use of CBD to manage the symptoms of ALS, and the growing global need for high-quality CBD products, ChineseInvestors.com will be entering the market and helping treat numerous patients in two of the largest countries in the world.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ChineseInvestors.com

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With a prevalence of 20 per million newborns in the United States, and an estimated 500,000 patients worldwide, epidermolysis bullosa is a group of rare inherited skin diseases that range in severity from mild to lethal and have no currently approved or known cure or treatment. The condition was brought to the public attention in the early 2000s, and, since then, efforts to find a cure have not born fruit, with most research and development focusing instead on addressing the symptoms, such as reducing blistering and swelling and preventing wounds and pain. However, a new product currently in development by Vancouver-based biopharmaceutical company InMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTCQB: IMLFF) may change that, having the potential to basically reverse the disease.

The condition causes extreme skin sensitivity that often results in painful blisters on the dermis or mucosal membranes, as a result of minor trauma such as heat or scratching or friction. Usually showing up in infancy or early childhood, the disease has various symptoms such as the appearance of large blisters on the skin, mostly on the feet and hands; loss of fingernails or toenails; blistering in the respiratory system, blistering on the scalp and hair loss; difficulty swallowing; dental problems and more. In its more severe forms, epidermolysis bullosa can cause complications such as sepsis, malnutrition and anemia, dehydration, eye disorders and even skin cancer. In some severe cases where blistering is widespread, frequent infections and sores affect the patients’ ability to breathe and eat and ultimately result in their death.

This orphan disease has no known treatment, and it is therefore a significant unmet medical need that InMed Pharmaceuticals, focusing on the research and development of innovative cannabinoid-based therapies, is working to fill. According to InMed, cannabinoid compounds have recognized analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and wound healing properties, which make them excellent candidates to alleviate some of the symptoms associated with this condition.

The company’s lead product candidate, INM-750, is the first therapy developed specifically for epidermolysis bullosa, being designed both to alleviate symptoms and target dermis imbalances that may ultimately provide a cure. INM-750 targets cannabinoid receptors in the skin to help accelerate wound healing, reduce pain and itching, reduce inflammation, and more. By upregulating specific keratins in the skin, INM-750 may also help reestablish the epidermal junction and essentially reverse the condition for patients with epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS) – the most common form of the disease.

Earlier this month, InMed filed an international Patent Cooperation Treaty application for intellectual and commercial protection of INM-750 and a cannabinoid-based therapy for EBS. This marks a significant milestone for the company, serving as validation for its efforts to develop new therapies based on cannabinoids and its unique approach to drug development. The company is using a proprietary bioinformatics assessment tool to identify what bioactive cannabis compounds can offer the optimal therapeutic benefits, with limited side effects and a proprietary biosynthesis technology to manufacture and test these compounds in biological systems via in vitro and in vivo experimentation. These proprietary systems and its drug development pipeline are the company’s core assets.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.InMedPharma.com

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Extreme Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXTR) has entered into an asset purchase agreement for Avaya Networking, Inc. totaling $100 million, subject to adjustments. In January 2017, Avaya and certain of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York. Extreme Networks’ offer is subject to court approval. The company defined its offer in an 8K SEC filing on March 7, 2017 (http://dtn.fm/t3joR).

Extreme Networks, Inc. is a networking company based in San Francisco. It designs, builds and installs ethernet computer network products. It is a software-driven company that enables IT departments of clients to build stronger relationships with customers, employees, and partners. The company maintains more than 20,000 customers in some 80 countries. A key asset for Avaya is its award-winning fabric switching technology. Switching fabric typically includes data buffers.

Extreme Networks’ asset purchase agreement comes as a result of potential synergies with Avaya Networking, Inc., as identified by the EXTR management team. Extreme Networks believes it offers complementary products between the two businesses across the company’s vertical markets. For Extreme Networks’ clients, the deal, if court approved, would offer technology for edge switching environments in addition to secure access to Avaya’s data center. For Avaya, selling its networking business is seen by its management as a positive move, enabling it to focus on its unified communications core.

Extreme Networks believes that, if the offer is consummated, it could result in $200 million of added revenues annually. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to its own earnings and cash flow beginning in fiscal 2018. Extreme Networks intends to update its quarterly guidance and revenue if the acquisition is approved.

The tentative agreement remains subject to better offers, as Avaya plans to make a motion to the court to initiate a bidding and public auction process. On execution of the purchase agreement, Extreme Networks placed $10 million in escrow. Pending approval, these funds will be applied to the purchase of Avaya’s assets, but not to any of the firm’s liabilities. If the deal is not approved, Extreme Networks may be entitled to court-approved termination fees.

For more information, visit www.ExtremeNetworks.com

To make more money from the same amount of work would seem to be only a dream. However, realtors at eXp Realty get paid a higher percentage rate than typical realtor splits and actually earn an equity piece of the company while building their businesses.

eXp World Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB: EXPI) is the publicly-traded holding company of eXp Realty, the agent owned cloud-based residential brokerage. The company’s increased payouts and perks helped eXp Realty nearly triple its agent count last year, with over 1,500 new real estate professionals joining in 2016. The company’s Q3 to Q3 trailing revenues were up 112 percent, coming in at $42.6 million.

The dramatic increase in agents and revenues reflects the environment built by the company’s unique business model. eXp Realty believes that the greatest asset of any real estate brokerage is the team of agents and brokers who create the revenues of the company.

Traditional agent-brokerage splits can range from 40 to 70 percent, depending on location and experience. Because of much lower operating costs, eXp Realty agents get paid 80 percent. Agents also get to own a part of the brokerage. They receive 100 shares with their first transaction and 500 shares once they generate about $80,000 in gross commission income. After exceeding that number and paying the brokerage its share, agents then go to a transaction-fee model for the remainder of the year, where they are paid 100 percent of their commission for each transaction minus $250 for the brokerage. To encourage recruitment, agents are further incentivized with 500 shares for each new agent recruited to the firm.

Real estate brokers and agents are sales driven people, and they’re the ones that drive revenues for the brokerage. Agents, like most everyone else, respond to incentives that benefit them and their families. Because it is cloud-based and more cost effective, eXp Realty can offer a commission structure that more greatly benefits its agents and ultimately drives more revenues for the company. Using shares as bonuses and incentives creates coherence between the agents and the company while at the same time enhancing agent retention. The bottom line is that eXp Realty knows how to incentivize and reward its agents, the real revenue drivers in any brokerage.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.eXpWorldHoldings.com

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Moxian, Inc. (NASDAQ: MOXC) plans to launch its Moxian+ paid platform in March 2017, transitioning away from the no-charge beta technology it has used in the past to access China’s estimated $48 billion 1H2017 online-to-offline (O2O) market. The Shenzhen, China-based company has already expanded with additional offices in Beijing and plans to grow its sales team to more than 100 commissioned executives by the end of 2017.

Moxian is a high technology company which has offered a no-charge platform to Chinese businesses and consumers. China’s booming O2O market permits consumers to order products online, then pay businesses offline. Moxian is targeting offline traditional small- and medium-sized businesses. It can offer them a comprehensive suite of O2O commerce services.

Moxian’s shift in focus to a paid model includes plans to offer various premium services to businesses. These features, which are on the Moxian+ Business App, enable vendors to access analytics, host online shops, manage social customer relationships, and execute target marketing. The company will also offer its Moxian+ User App to consumers. Stakes are high, as China is the largest mobile telephone market in the world. It has 1.3 billion mobile users, according to a December 2015 analysis by China’s Ministry of Industry and Technology.

Moxian’s revenue streams will come from its paid premium subscriptions. The ‘Gold’ subscription plan is $1,200 annually, while the ‘Diamond’ plan costs $2,000 per year. Moxian also receives 3-5% payments on all transactions on its platform. The company also generates revenue from mobile advertisements, but its fastest growing projected revenue stream will come from OEM and distribution license fees. Those fees are set to explode by roughly 300% year-over-year, and, in 2018, they are expected to account for 48% of fee revenues.

In its initial coverage report, SeeThruEquity (http://nnw.fm/Dc4fs) set a price target of $4.50 on Moxian’s stock as it raised $8.5 million net in a public equity offering to invest in the growth of its business. That successful fundraising in November 2016 enabled the company to uplist to the NASDAQ Capital Markets.

Moxian hopes to convert the 31,600 businesses and greater than 300,000 consumers already using the free Moxian platform to paid, premium Moxian+. To that end, Moxian plans to expand into Shanghai and Guangzhou. It will focus its selling efforts on businesses and consumers in large metropolitan centers. If its sales reach the projected $11 million in 2017, Moxian should be cash flow break even by the end of this year, SeeThruEquity reports.

Moxian is focusing on small- and medium-sized businesses, and there are 75 million of these in China. SeeThruEquity sees the opportunity for Moxian to increase its customer base through sales of its paid Moxian+, but it cautions that, in order to fund its aggressive growth plans, Moxian would need to have access to even more capital in the future.

For more information, visit www.Moxian.com

It’s estimated that over one million Americans and millions more worldwide suffer from liver cirrhosis. Globally, it accounted for over 1.2 million deaths in 2013, and it’s the 12th leading cause of death by disease in the United States, where 27,000 Americans die each year from the disease. Worldwide, 57 percent of cirrhosis is attributable to either hepatitis C or hepatitis B. Long-term alcohol abuse accounts for about 20 percent of cirrhosis-related deaths globally, while, in the United States, 40 percent of cirrhosis-related deaths are caused by alcohol abuse. Each of these disease drivers triggers the replacement of normal liver tissue with damaged scar tissue, which impedes blood flow and the liver’s ability to clean and purify blood.

Liver cirrhosis has multiple potential causes and often more than one of them can be found in the same patient. The disease’s most common complication is ascites, which is the abnormal accumulation of fluid in the abdomen, often accompanied by kidney dysfunction. This life-threatening condition causes severe suffering, frequent infections, and multiple complications that can lead to a painful death.

Currently, no approved medications to treat ascites are available. Diet change and drugs used off-label can provide some initial symptomatic relief, but, as the disease worsens, response rates fall. About 40 percent of patients die painfully within two years of diagnosis. The treatment costs for liver cirrhosis, including ascites and other complications, are deemed to be in excess of $4 billion annually in the U.S. alone.

The unquestioned human and financial toll of liver cirrhosis on patients, families, and society has created a real need for treatment solutions. One development stage biotechnology company, BioVie, Inc. (OTCQB: BIVI), is pioneering just such innovative treatment solutions. BioVie actively pursues the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative drug therapies for liver diseases. Just four months ago, BioVie submitted an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for its initial drug candidate, BIV201, to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This new drug has the potential to become the first drug approved by the FDA to treat ascites due to chronic liver cirrhosis and could become the breakthrough treatment so desperately needed around the world.

For more information, visit www.BioVieInc.com

Addiction, a chronic brain disease that induces compulsive activity leading to many legal, social, and health consequences, is a problem that has swept over the world. Although this disease may start as a positive experience for the user, the outcome is normally devastating or even fatal. In the U.S., pharmaceutical opioids and heroin are two of the most problematic substances, causing thousands of deaths annually.

However, it’s not just opioids and heroin causing problems. Millions of Americans are addicted to other drugs and alcohol. Florida, specifically, is known as a state of hard drinking. It is also known as a party destination for spring breakers. Approximately 58% of Floridians are drinkers, with around 15% of these being heavy drinkers (http://dtn.fm/EC47x).

The combination of Florida being a well-known center for drug trafficking and a go-to spring break destination has led to youth and young adult substance abuse in the state becoming a critical problem. According to DrugRehab.com (http://dtn.fm/hG32R), “In 2015, of those in Florida who sought rehab, 47.5 percent of people addicted to heroin and 48.2 percent of people addicted to opioids were aged 30 and under.” In addition, of all the patients admitted to rehabilitation facilities in Florida in 2015, more than 3,000 of these were children aged below 18 years old. This equates to 10.6% of the total number of admitted patients.

It is not only the children and young adults with substance abuse and addiction who are suffering the consequences of the drugs. Parents with chemical dependencies often have tragic effects on their own children. Aside from potentially leaving children with the same substance addiction, these parents often neglect their offspring. DrugRehab.com reports that such emotional and physical neglect, and sometimes related abuse, caused more than 230 child deaths in Florida between 2008 and 2014. Fortunately, more is being done by organizations to overcome this statewide problem.

Treatment is essential for both adults and children hooked on opiates, heroin, and other substances. The best way to overcome this problem is residential treatment, something Greenestone Healthcare Corp. (OTCQB: GRST) can now offer Floridians, following its recent acquisition of Seastone Drug Rehab in Delray Beach, Florida.

The company, which offers addiction and rehabilitation treatment services, some of which include counseling, coaching, intervention, psychological assessment, and more, uses a unique approach to substance abuse recovery, focusing on treating any underlying disorders that could have encouraged the addiction.

By working with medical professionals at the clinic, as well as the patient’s family and friends, Seastone is uniquely equipped to help adults in Florida and around the country overcome their addiction. This will hopefully result in fewer children suffering both the mental and physical consequences of their parents or guardians addiction, leading to fewer child deaths as a result of neglect and/or abuse.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.GreeneStone.net

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