| LCA-Vision Announces a Management and Board Change
CINCINNATI -- LCA-Vision Inc. (NASDAQ:LCAV), a leading provider of laser vision correction services under the LasikPlus brand, today announced that Craig Joffe has resigned from the Board of Directors effective as of March 22, 2007. In addition, Mr. Joffe has resigned as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel effective as of March 30, 2007. Mr. Joffe joined the company in March 2003, and was a key member of the executive management team that helped grow the companys revenues from $62 million in 2002 to over $256 million in 2006. Also during this time, the company developed an expansion infrastructure allowing it to successfully open approximately 35 LasikPlus vision centers. Mr. Joffe, who in addition to his executive leadership role in both operational and legal capacities, also served as Interim Chief Executive Officer from March 1, 2006 through November 1, 2006, helping build the companys operational, human resources, and risk management infrastructures, as the executive management team continued to grow awareness of the LasikPlus brand across the United States.
Gender And Age Can Be Determined From Face Silhouettes
A new study published in Journal of Vision demonstrates that face silhouettes are visually processed much like regular face stimuli and provide enough information to determine traits about the subject including age and gender.
Researchers from Stanford University conducted a variety of studies using silhouetted face profiles obtained by reducing gray-scale photographs of face profiles to two-tone black and white images. Study participants were asked to determine the gender and age of the individuals in silhouette. Results showed that people can extract information from silhouetted face profiles about their front-view counterparts.
Male silhouettes were classified as male 83.3 percent of the time and female silhouettes were classified as female 55.7 percent of the time.
Invest for the wider common good
With reference to the article Sleeping on ones laurels: Can we afford such an attitude ? by Rookaya Kasenally in lexpress of 14th March 07), I would like to bring my two-cents worth to the debate.
First, Liberal economics of which we hear more and more these days. The gist of this philosophy is that no one owes anyone anything and everything is left to the caprice of market forces. It thus reduces human society to its raw natural state where dog eats dog and every man for himself.
But, what makes us human beings different from other forms of life is precisely our faculty to empathise with and give a helping hand to the weak. By contrast, in the animal world, the weak is just left behind to perish and die. But, we are human and, as such, expected to behave with humanity towards all living things, including human beings.
Ziemer to take over marketing of Amadeus II microkeratome from AMO
Ziemer Group announced that it will assume all worldwide marketing, sales and support duties for the Amadeus II automated microkeratome from Advanced Medical Optics. The Amadeus product line, although originally created by a Ziemer subsidiary, has been sold by AMO since its launch in 1999, according to a press release from Ziemer. Ziemer has developed a global marketing and distribution network during the last 8 years while AMO has been marketing the Amadeus products. Ziemer will now rely on that network, said Frank Ziemer, Ziemer CEO, in the release. "We can assure AMO's customers that we will provide a seamless transition and will do our utmost to be a competent and responsive partner," he said. The Amadeus II builds on the original Amadeus and features enhanced handling and optional accessories for epi-LASIK and lamellar keratoplasty, the release said.
Stem Cell Therapy: The Holy Grail of Medicine
Stem cell therapy is the new buzz in medical corridors with 'miracle' cures being reported everyday. Nancy Singh analyses the promises it holds for various diseases and the growing market for it. Four-month-old Aarohi Bhatt recently created medical history for being cured of a rare heart condition believed to be untreatable. The cause of her cureĀStem Cell Therapy (SCT) using her father's blood at Frontier Lifeline Hospital, Chennai. Besides being a difficult surgery, it was for the first time in the world that SCT was successfully done on a child so young. Stem cell therapy is said to be expensive, however, considering that the effects of treatment are long lasting, without requiring expensive repetitive treatment, this seems affordable. Frost & Sullivan estimates that the annual cost of $2,500 per patient for SCT, at the manufacturer's level, is an average cost distributed over several years.
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