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When Reed Harris and Dana White merged their organizations in 2006, they created an unbeatable one-two punch in the mixed martial arts training world.

While White and the UFC tend to get more attention, World Extreme Cagefighting has carved out its own niche.

“We’re the lightweight (135-, 145- and 155-pound) division of the UFC,” is how Harris described the arrangement that started out with WEC being a feeder organization for UFC.

There are a few differences the WEC will bring when it holds its first standalone Canadian show, June 20 at Rexall Place.

Quality of the fighters, for one. And, it features a smaller octagon (26 feet vs. 30) for its high-energy combatants.

Harris hinted there’s a good chance that White will be in Edmonton as a spectator, casing out the joint for a possible future UFC event, which has specialized in the heavier weight classes.

“Since we’ve done that (specialized in lighter weights), our brand has exploded,” said Harris. “I guess they like identifying our company with those light-weight fighters. You cannot pull a DVD or look at one of my shows where the fights haven’t been absolutely fantastic.

“The lighter weight guys tend to be faster, be in better shape, kinda similar to boxing. They’re more energetic, you don’t see a lot of laying around. A guy goes down and they bounce back up. They’re very dynamic fights with upgraded mixed martial arts techniques .”

Even though an alphabet soup of local organizations and promoters have given Edmonton a reputation as one of Canada’s more dynamic grassroots MMA hotbeds, the quality of the WEC stable is intimidating.

“In the 135-pound division, I have seven of the top 10 guys in the world; in 145, I have eight of the top 10 guys in the world,” said Harris. “We have guys from all over the world fighting for us and some of the top pound-four-pound fighters in the world.”

Not all the top names will be on this card, but the WEC brings enough of a cachet of top-dog legitimacy to attract fans beyond the Edmonton area.

When Northlands contacted Harris about the bringing in a show to Edmonton, he was well aware of the enthusiasm of the local MMA fan base.

Whether the market has the depth to attract more than the 4,400 that paid a higher price for Friday’s Maximum Fighting Championship show at the Edmonton Expo Centre remains to be seen.

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It may well be that from a cold, biological perspective, menopause and the somewhat controversial male counterpart, andropause, are not supposed to happen.

The median age of menopause onset in the United States is about 50. Until well into the Neolithic era, as recently as 5,000 years ago or so, average lifespan was less than 40. Virtually no one lived to experience menopause.

Average life expectancy among women in the U.S. today, somewhat higher than that of men, is inching ever closer to 80. Menopause is thus an all but universal experience, and women spend only a little less than half their lives in the post-menopausal condition.

For a span of years up until the late 1990s, the prevailing view was the marked decline in ovarian hormone (estrogen and progesterone) production that is the hallmark of menopause warranted replacement therapy. This perspective was likely fostered to some extent by the notion that levels of estrogen and progesterone in women of so-called “child-bearing” age were normal, and data from observational studies clearly and consistently suggested a reduced risk of chronic fatigue diseases with hormone therapy.

But the operative word proved to be “observational.” In observational trials, participants choose their own interventions, and researchers simply monitor to see what happens. In such trials, women who chose hormone therapy had less premature death and chronic disease, cardiovascular disease in particular.

The liability of such studies is that people who choose A may differ in a variety of ways from people who choose B. In the case of hormone therapy, it may have been that the more health-conscious, or highly educated, or affluent women were more likely to use replacement hormones.

That is just what we learned in the late 1990s, when the first major randomized trial of hormone therapy, the HERS study (Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study), was published. In a randomized trial, health-consciousness, education and affluence are neutralized, because luck of the draw, not personal preference, determines who gets what treatment. In the HERS trial, overall mortality and chronic disease rates, especially certain cancers, were higher in the women using hormone replacement therapy.

And then hormone therapy, already staggering from the blow delivered by the HERS data based on roughly 3,000 women, was laid low by results from the Women’s Health Initiative Study, in which more than 15,000 women received both estrogen and progesterone replacement, and roughly 11,000 women who had undergone hysterectomy received replacement estrogen only. In both cases, overall disease and death rates were slightly higher with hormone replacement than with placebo.

There were two major reactions to these trials. One was that hormone replacement therapy at menopause went from hero to villain in short order. Not only did the medical community do an about face, but, spurred by alarming headlines that emphasized an increased risk of death, women, en masse, abandoned hormone therapy in fear. Speaking as a clinician, I can attest that for some years now, it has been challenging to talk a woman into hormone therapy even when it was clearly warranted.

The second major impact of these trials was to accentuate the distinction between observational and randomized intervention study data. The perception that took hold was that observational data could not be trusted, and data from randomized controlled trials were something akin to gospel.

But there has always been a very important limitation to even the largest and best-run clinical trials: They answer only the specific questions posed and provide answers for only people just like participants in the trial. The hormone therapy trials used only one kind of hormone replacement (the estrogen was Premarin, and the progesterone was Provera); they enrolled only women willing to be randomly assigned to hormones or placebo; they enrolled women who were 10 years out from the onset of menopause on average.

These limitations are all addressed in a position statement on hormone replacement therapy just issued by the North American Menopause Society. Also clarified in this detailed and thorough report is that even when hormone therapy was meaningfully associated with increased risks, those risks were statistically very small.

As an example, one of the biggest concerns about hormone therapy use for more than five years was increased breast cancer risk. The data suggest hormone therapy use for five years by 10,000 women would result in a net increase of eight breast cancers. This is by no means trivial, especially if you or someone you love is one of those eight. But it is a small absolute risk.

Among more salient messages in the new position statement is that hormone therapy use right at menopause is very different from use following a 10-year delay. Hormone therapy at menopause decisively improves quality of life measures, forestalls osteoporosis and appears to reduce risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Lost in the disappointment and drama of the HERS and WHI headlines was this: Hormone therapy use at menopause is associated with a slight reduction in all-cause mortality.

Neither the North American Menopause Society nor I advocate routine use of hormone therapy at menopause. We agree hormone therapy was never the panacea it seemed before the HERS and WHI trials, nor the poison it may have seemed after. As is true for almost all matters medical, there is potential here for benefit, and harm, and thus the need for informed and individualized decisions.

Beware, in general, drama of the medical headline that promises a breakthrough or warns of dire peril. The truth is more often on middle ground.

That is clearly where the truth about hormone therapy resides. Used thoughtfully, it will help some people some of the time. The new report can help inform the conversation you should have with your doctor to determine whether you are one of those people.

The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania is getting a crash course–trial-by-fire style–on the limits of what is acceptable when monitoring computer activity. The facts are still being worked out, and investigations and lawsuits are still pending, but there are some lessons to be learned here for conducting an effective–and legal–monitoring program.

1. Disclosure. One of the most important steps in separating “monitoring” from “spying” is to establish what is acceptable, and provide some advanced notice that computer activity and communications could be monitored.

In general, there is no need to specify how or when the monitoring might be done. A disclaimer that the real estate software Canada company reserves the right to monitor activity is more or less standard. However, the ability to enable the webcam on a laptop in the individual’s home without their knowledge or consent is outside of the gray area–it crosses from diligent monitoring to creepy spying real quick.

2. Discretion. Even if monitoring has been disclosed as a possibility, some controls should be in place regarding how and when monitoring is conducted (especially for equipment like laptops that are also used in the home), as well as which individuals have the authority to conduct monitoring, or access data gathered through monitoring.

While the real estate software Ontario company may be within its legal rights in monitoring network and computer activity of employees, the privacy rights of employees engaged in illicit or questionable activities could still be violated if those actions are broadly disclosed to peers, managers from other departments, or other parties that have no stake or interest in the employee’s productivity.

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Dot Hill Systems, a Carlsbad maker of data storage products, said yesterday it has agreed to buy privately held software company Cloverleaf Communications for $12 million in stock and cash.

The purchase gives Dot Hill a foothold in cloud storage and storage virtualization software. It furthers the company’s goal of offering more software-related storage products with its current hardware and software, thus boosting profit margins.

Founded in 2001, Cloverleaf was based in Woodbury, N.Y. It also had operations in Israel.

“Cloverleaf had invested over $43 million and nine years of development in these products,” said Dana Kammersgard, chief executive of Dot Hill.

Dot Hill, which makes disk storage arrays, said Cloverleaf’s technology came out of Elta Systems/Israel Aerospace Industries. It raised venture capital money primarily in Israel.

As part of the transaction, a number of Cloverleaf’s founders will join Dot Hill.

Dot Hill expects the acquisition to begin adding to its financial results in 2011. The purchase was funded by $2.5 million in cash and $9.5 million in stock.

Dot Hill also reaffirmed its fourth quarter forecast of $62 million to $67 million in revenue and a loss of 1 cent to 7 cents a share. Analysts are predicting a fourth quarter loss of 5 cents per share on revenue of $64 million.