FotoFinder Systems Reaches Sales Agreement for Northeast and Mid Atlantic Sales Efforts with THM

Columbia, MD. /PRNewswire/ FotoFinder Systems, Inc. , the leading manufacturers and vendors for digital imaging systems., today announced a sales agreement with THM Group, LLC, a sales outsourcing firm, which calls for THM to manage all aspects of Northeast and Mid Atlantic sales efforts of FotoFinder.

“We’re confident that we have the best products on the market and have begun to see greater market acceptance for our products. THM is a professional sales company that will apply their skills to building and expanding our customer base, allowing management to focus on its strengths in the development, enhancement and production of the products,” said Ferdinand Mayer Vice President of FotoFinder.

“We are excited at the opportunity to work with FotoFinder, one of the top manufactures in digital imaging systems.,” said Michael Engelhart, a Principal of THM Group. “We have a complete understanding for the dermatology market and together, we are in a strong position to build FotoFinder’s sales and distribution.”

About FotoFinder Systems, Inc.
FotoFinder Systems, Inc. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and vendors for digital imaging systems. For over a decade they have been providing professionals worldwide with the best in image management and archiving. Since then their products have become well-established in the sectors of aesthetics, dermatology, pharmaceutics and industry.

About THM Group LLC
THM Group, LLC provides outsourcing of sales to public and private small and mid-market companies. THM develops and implements tactical sales programs directed at building sales forces, identifying alternative channels of distribution, developing strategic alliances and implementing direct sales programs designed to produce business growth and achieve financial objectives.

FotoFinder Systems, Inc. has recently released its brand new product FotoFinder 2007 which is a significant step forward in skin imaging. The digital photo documentation of cosmetic and medical treatments has been redesigned to increase speed and usability to the Max. Automated Total Body Mapping for early skin cancer detection has been added. The result is a cutting edge imaging system which covers all aspects of photo documentation in the dermatological field.

Source: FotoFinder Systems

Spa Finder Releases Results of Day Spa Industry Survey

Spa Finder has released the results of the Day Spa Industry Survey. Conducted electronically in August 2007, with email invitations sent to a random sample of 6200 day spas nationwide, Spa Finder collected 389 complete surveys.

Here are some highlights from the survey:
85% of day spa businesses have just one location, and the majority of spa facilities measure less than 2000 square feet. More than one out of three day spas report gross annual revenues under $200,000, with 56% (the majority) reporting gross revenues falling under $400,000. At least 80% of our respondent-spas had been in operations for less than ten years. A majority of spas had been fully operational for only about two years.

Spas reporting revenues at the one million mark or above (one in five spas) have been in business for at least nine years.

On average, respondent spa-menus offer 40 different treatments and services. Multiple services and treatments per visit in our respondent spas were common. At least 60% of clientele received two treatments; around 80% of all clients spent less than $150;

Almost half of the respondents stated that retail business contributed around 10% to their gross annual revenue. More than 50% of clients spent less than $50 on retail purchases.60% of our respondents carried less than 150 retail items at their spa.

Almost all respondent spas had a spa website, however most spas do not do much to promote their online presence. A large majority of respondents did not use any internet marketing strategies.

舛ommission only was the most commonly used salary structure. If a spa was using a combination of pay-per-hour and commission wage structure, the pay was about $10 with an average commission rate of 29%.

Human resources issues such as obtaining, retaining, and managing motivated and quality staff was listed as the greatest challenge that respondent spas faced.

Almost 85% of respondent spas did not have a reservations department (to handle client appointment bookings) separate from their front desk operations.

31% had a marketing budget of under $5,000 per year Respondent spas with higher revenues did not necessarily use expensive marketing methods but chose to focus on marketing tools that reached their target audience appropriately.

Source: SpaTrade

Aspirin — Just For Men?

First it was an apple, now it is an aspirin a day that may keep the doctor away. Aspirin has become standard for heart attack prevention, but research published in the online open access journal BMC Medicine suggests that this may really be a man’s drug.

Scientists have long puzzled over why the protective effects of aspirin vary so widely between clinical trials. Some trials show no difference between aspirin and placebo, whilst others report that aspirin reduces the risk of a heart attack by more than 50%.

This latest study, from The James Hogg iCAPTURE Centre for Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Research, highlights the influence of gender on aspirin’s protective powers. Investigators examined the results of 23 previously published clinical trials for the effect for aspirin in heart attack prevention, involving more than 113,000 patients. The authors then analysed how much the ratio of men to women in these trials affected the trials’ outcomes.

“Trials that recruited predominantly men demonstrated the largest risk reduction in non-fatal heart attacks,” says Dr Don Sin, one of the study’s authors. “The trials that contained predominately women failed to demonstrate a significant risk reduction in these non-fatal events. We found that a lot of the variability in these trials seems to be due to the gender ratios, supporting the theory that women may be less responsive to aspirin than men for heart protection.”

The mechanisms of this resistance are not yet understood, although recent studies have shown that men and women have major differences in the structure and physiology of the heart’s blood vessels.

“From our findings we would caution clinicians on the prescribing aspirin to women, especially for primary prevention of heart attacks,” says Dr Sin. “Whether or not other pharmaceutical products would be more effective for women is unclear; more sex-specific studies should now be conducted.”

Article: T Yerman, W Q Gan, D D Sin , The Influence of Gender on the Effects of Aspirin In Preventing Myocardial Infarction , BMC Medicine

Source: ScienceDaily.com

Genes Found that Slow Both Aging and Cancer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have identified a batch of genes that not only prevent cancer but slow the aging process in worms, and say they are now looking to see if the genes have the same properties in humans.

Many of the genes in the worms are already known to have counterparts in humans, and the team at the University of California, San Francisco, say they hope to better understand some of the processes that cause both aging and cancer.

Drugs that mimic the effects of these genes might help people both avoid cancer and also live longer, they wrote in Sunday’s issue of the journal Nature Genetics.

Biologist Cynthia Kenyon is perhaps best known for discovering that a change in just one gene, called daf-2, could double the life span of small roundworms called Caenorhabditis elegans.

She and graduate student Julie Pinkston-Gosse screened as many genes as they could that were affected by daf-2. They looked at 734 in total, and found that 29 of them either stimulated tumor growth or suppressed it.

Some caused cell proliferation — which goes haywire to help a tumor grow and spread — while others initiated a programmed suicide process called apoptosis, used by the body to destroy faulty cells, including tumor cells.

“About half of these genes also affected normal aging, thereby linking these two processes mechanistically,” the two researchers wrote.

“There is a widely held view that any mechanism that slows aging would probably stimulate tumor growth,” Kenyon said in a statement.

“But we found many genes that increase life span, but slow tumor growth. Humans have versions of many of these genes, so this work may lead to treatments that keep us youthful and cancer-free much longer than normal.”

The genes that stimulated tumor growth also accelerated aging, Kenyon found. The genes that prevented tumor growth slowed down the aging process and extended life span in the worms.

Kenyon said the findings strengthen theories that the controls of life span and cancer have deep, common roots.

Small creatures that researchers work on, such as the C. elegans roundworm, often share genes with humans, and these genes often underlie key biological processes.

Source: Reuters.com