Latitude 360, an award-winning developer and operator of upscale, multi-dimensional dining and entertainment venues, this morning announced its partnership with leading mobile payment technology platform MyCheck. Per the agreement, MyCheck will provide” new robust avenues” to strengthen Latitude 360 customer engagement via its own branded ordering and payment app.

The partnership will be an on-premise brand integration and extend to the five current locations Latitude 360 operates, including Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Syracuse, and Saucon Valley, as well as future locations.

“We are thrilled to partner with MyCheck as we are always looking for opportunities to elevate the guest experience in our venues,” Brent W. Brown, CEO/Founder of Latitude 360 stated in the news release. “After analyzing multiple options, we concluded that MyCheck was a unique partner that could meet our needs, given their potential to not only boost the guest experience that our customers have come to expect at our venues, but also increase sales and help our staff reach peak performance. Being that our five venues range in size from 55,000 to 75,000 square feet, utilizing MyCheck will facilitate the ability for our guests to engage in the many entertainment options Latitude 360 offers without delay.”

With the partnership comes a groundbreaking, custom-designed app scheduled for release in October. The Latitude 360 mobile app will allow guests to easily order beverage and dessert items off the menu, reorder other items already on their check and then easily view, split their bill with friends and pay, using multiple linked payment methods including Apple Pay. In addition, guests will be able to view their status and redeem benefits from their Latitude 360 Membership and Rewards program – all from the convenience of the customer’s smartphone.

“We are proud to partner with the innovators at Latitude 360, and enable this unique experience into what has become an ultimate dining and entertainment destination,” said Tal Zvi Nathanel, co-founder and U.S. CEO of MyCheck. “We are excited to our integrated capabilities to further enhance the Latitude 360 Experience and satisfaction among a growing number of guests.”

Today’s news follows recent significant announcements from Latitude 360 as the multi-dimensional entertainment venue and eatery continues to grow its roster of in-retail promotions. The brand recently signed partnerships with Cross, Monster Energy, and Major League Fantasy.

For more information, visit www.latitude360.com

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After receiving 18 tasting medals, Aristocrat Group’s Ultra-Premium Handcrafted RWB Vodka appears to be emerging as one of the top-rated vodkas in North America. The U.S.-made, distilled spirit’s most recent awards came at this year’s Los Angeles International Spirits Competition, where RWB received a Gold medal and Best in Category designation.

In a news release this morning, ASCC CEO Robert Federowicz said he is most proud of the brand’s performance last year in Bulgaria’s Ultimate Vodka Competition, where RWB tallied the maximum number of points possible and bested vodkas from Russia, Ukraine, Sweden and Poland.

“To go into a competition in Eastern Europe where vodka has been made for generations and win is a testament to the care put into every bottle of RWB Vodka,” Federowicz said. “This isn’t just the best vodka made in the USA—it’s one of the best vodkas on the planet.”

ASCC recently celebrated the second anniversary of its debut product release, which the company says judges applaud as having a “dry, silky body and perfectly balanced notes of sweet cream, peppercorn and dried fruit.”

Made in the USA using Idaho russet potatoes and mountain spring water, RWB Vodka is the flagship product within the company’s growing portfolio of brands. ASCC has taken careful measures to ensure its product stands apart from the rest.

“Everything from our product’s ‘gluten-free’ labeling to our sponsorship of sports teams and recording artists have helped us to differentiate our brand and achieve the goals we set for word-of-mouth and visibility,” Federowicz said. “We’re confident that there will be many more awards to come.”

For more information visit www.aristocratgroupcorp.com

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Today before the opening bell, International Stem Cell Corp. announced that Mahnaz Ebrahimi will be taking over as the new Chief Financial Officer, effective September 14, 2015. The prior CFO, Jay Novak, ended his employment in May.

Ms. Ebrahimi is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Equity Professional and a Certified Cash Manager. She has more than 25 years of experience in financial management and accounting of growing research-driven companies in the life sciences, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical sectors. Most recently, she has been assisting several biotechnology and technology companies on accounting and SEC related matters in an expert consultancy capacity, including Flux Power Holdings, Polaris Pharmaceuticals and Ocera Therapeutics.

From 2010 until an acquisition took place in 2012, Ms. Ebrahimi served as Director of Finance and Planning, as well as Treasury, of eBioscience. She also served as Vice President of Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer of Profil Institute for Clinical Research from 2003 to 2005. From 1989 to 2000, she served as Director of Finance & Treasury and Assistant Controller of Agouron Pharmaceuticals, which became a subsidiary of Pfizer in 2000.

For those unfamiliar with International Stem Cell Corp., it is a California-based biotechnology company focused on the therapeutic applications of human parthenogenetic stem cells (hpSCs) and the development and commercialization of cell-based research and cosmetic products. ISCO’s core technology, parthenogenesis, results in the creation of pluripotent human stem cells from unfertilized oocytes (eggs). ISCO also produces and markets specialized cells and growth media for therapeutic research worldwide through its subsidiary Lifeline Cell Technology, and stem cell-based skin care products through its subsidiary Lifeline Skin Care.

For more information, visit www.internationalstemcell.com

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FutureLand Corp. is a cannabis and hemp land leasing company formed to capitalize on the emerging global cannabis market. The company currently owns roughly 240 acres in southern Colorado, which it leases to medical marijuana, retail marijuana and industrial hemp growers. FutureLand delivers the land and facilities, as well as all licensing, approvals, site plans, supplies and equipment needed to meet the specific needs of cultivators. While the company retains complete ownership of all land and structures, it also monetizes through leases, financing interest revenue and management fees associated with cultivation centers.

“[The company] currently has two signed leases for our land in Colorado,” Cameron Cox, chief executive officer of FutureLand, stated in a letter to shareholders. “Both leases are for five years, plus renewals. We will continue to outfit the property and look for new opportunities both in Colorado and other states.”

The company’s leasing strategy follows a proven model currently being utilized by a variety of major investment firms. Silver Bay Realty Trust Corp. (NYSE: SBY), for example, acquires, renovates, leases and manages single-family properties for rental income and long-term capital appreciation, while Equity Residential (NYSE: EQR) focuses on high quality apartment properties. Unlike these firms, however, FutureLand is also strategically positioned to benefit from the rapid growth of the cannabis industry.

According to research from The ArcView Group, the U.S. cannabis industry grew to approximately $2.7 billion in 2014, which was a year-over-year increase of nearly 75 percent. Over the next five years, the firm forecasts that 14 more states will legalize recreational marijuana and two more states will legalize the plant for medicinal purposes. As a result, the national marijuana market is expected to reach nearly $11 billion by 2019. This performance will serve as a formidable platform upon which FutureLand can rapidly expand upon its existing operations.

In addition to its leasing strategy, FutureLand has also outlined intentions to own and operate its own cultivation centers and dispensaries in the future. The company is currently awaiting a federal decision to reclassify cannabis as a schedule II drug before executing on this approach. Recent federal initiatives – including a Supreme Court decision recognizing the right of states to regulate marijuana use and a congressional act banning the federal government from interfering with state medical marijuana laws – could foreshadow a significant and sustainable opportunity for FutureLand to rapidly expand its target markets.

For more information, visit www.futurelandcorp.com

The legal marijuana industry is one of the fastest growing markets in the country. Nearly half of all states allow for medicinal cannabis consumption, and a handful – including Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska – have legalized recreational use as well. Despite the industry’s widespread acceptance, nearly all of the nation’s banks refuse to take money from marijuana sales for fear of punishment from federal authorities, for whom marijuana remains illegal. As a result, those operating in the marijuana industry are forced to maintain huge sums of cash on hand, making them a prime target for criminal activities.

FastFunds Financial Corp., through majority-owned subsidiary Brawnstone Security, Inc., is addressing these concerns by offering topflight security services to clients in the rapidly expanding marijuana industry. With a team comprised of police officers, private investigators, law enforcement trainers and private security consultants, Brawnstone has quickly grown into one of the top providers of security and training in the eastern United States. Since acquiring a 70 percent interest in Brawnstone in 2014, FFFC has made considerable progress toward increasing its subsidiary’s share of the national security industry, which is currently valued in excess of $300 billion.

Last week, FFFC released an update on Brawnstone, and the results were extremely promising. Following aggressive work on gross margin enhancement and spending reduction, the company reported stabilized revenues of approximately $64,000 per month for the first eight months of the year. FFFC expects to build on this progress in the coming months by capitalizing on the potential passage of legalization measures for both medical and recreational marijuana use in Brawnstone’s home state of Ohio. Voters in Ohio are currently set to weigh in on the proposed amendments on November 3, 2015.

For prospective shareholders, FFFC’s comprehensive approach to the thriving legal cannabis industry makes it an intriguing investment opportunity. Look for the company to continue focusing on ways to capitalize on rising consumer interest in a variety of unique ways – including the release of the Tommy Chong Green Card, the development of cultivation products through Pure Grow Systems and the funding of promising startups through Cannabis Angel – as it promotes maximized shareholder value.

For more information, visit www.fastfundsfinancial.com

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With California’s landmark Assembly and Senate passage of sweeping marijuana regulations this month, as the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act heads for an eager pen of Gov. Brown, the state’s $1.15 billion marijuana market (BIS Research, September 1) – which is the largest in what was a $2.7 billion legal marijuana market last year – has now reached a significant milestone. But this milestone, set in the country’s most populous state, applies to the much broader U.S. cannabis industry.

That industry is now forecast to hit $20.67 billion in 2020 (Research and Markets, September 18), on an estimated CAGR of 29.80 percent. One of the big components that will do quite well in all of this is going to be hemp, and it’s a subject that is largely under-reported on. Given that hemp was illegal to grow without a permit for decades, and that the 2014 Farm Bill finally made it possible for Americans to grow limited quantities of hemp, the $620 million (Hemp Industries Association, 2014) U.S. market for hemp is currently being serviced by some $500 million in imports.

With modern processing techniques, the powerful organic fibers in the hemp plant can be extracted for various important industrial uses, including a key LCM (lost circulation material) product for the global drilling fluids market, which was recently forecast in a report published by MarketReportsHub.com in January, as being on track to hit $16.31 billion by 2019. High-quality LCM is used in drilling mud to ubiquitously plug fractures or handle porosity in geological formations, which lead to lost pressure and output, and potentially blowouts. The high-grade organic fiber in hemp is perfect for this application, but the limited domestic market has hindered its more widespread use, even though it is superb at handling a variety of pressure and temperature related phenomena without impairing the rheology (fluid dynamics of substances like muds) of the drilling fluid, or increasing fluid-loss.

Hemp can be made into a wide variety of consumer goods as well, from fine clothing and shampoos, to high-grade medicinal cannabidiol and nutraceuticals for the rapidly expanding global nutraceutical market, which is set to grow at around 8 percent CAGR, from $186.2 billion this year to around $270 billion in 2020 (Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India and RNCOS, August). However, it is the lucrative niche market in LCM that North Carolina based Hemp, Inc. has its eyes on the most, with the launch of the company’s custom 70,000 square-foot multipurpose industrial hemp processing plant, expected to be the biggest in all of North America, and capable of doing everything from decortication (fiber stripping) to milling.

The company’s existing portfolio of hemp-infused consumer products, like shampoos and conditioners, lip balms, moisturizers, skin treatment oils, and candles, showcase an already well-developed branding sense. Sure, Q2 sales this of nutraceuticals/bed and bath were up this year, but revenues from the company’s forthcoming DrillWall™ product, used to maintain seals across both energy and water drilling markets, are expected to be as much as just under of $1 million a month.

Given such revenue projections from the company using a limited workforce of one crew shift per day and an output of only one ton per hour, a three-crew shift cycle means HEMP could be raking in $2.94 million a month from its new facility, via juicy three to five year contracts typical among LCM buyers. The company is also working on an absorbent hemp product used to soak up spills called SpillSorbent™, made with hemp and another fibrous plant known as kenaf. The company already has almost five million pounds of material stored at its massive decortication facility and as of mid-August, the 150 acre kenaf crop of Tainung 2 cultivar, a kenaf variety prized for its maximum mass yield, was about seven feet high and on schedule for harvesting before the end of the year.

Learn more by visiting www.hempinc.com

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Avant Diagnostics is a medical diagnostic technology company that specializes in large panel biomarker screening. The company’s first test, OvaDx®, is a sophisticated microarray-based test designed to detect pre-symptomatic ovarian cancer by measuring the activation of the immune system in blood samples in response to early stage ovarian tumor cell development.

In clinical development, OvaDx has indicated high sensitivity and specificity for all types and stages of ovarian cancer, including stage IA-IV borderline serous, clear cell, endometrioid, mixed epithelial, mucinous, serous and ovarian adenocarcinoma. Upon FDA approval, Avant plans to offer its diagnostic product as an elective test for women seeking greater wellness, as well as those in the elevated risk category for ovarian cancer.

OvaDx is also expected to be used by doctors to advance the forefront of ovarian cancer treatment, promoting the utilization of improved surgical options and more effective chemotherapies by serving as a supplement to existing tests, such as CA-125, OVA1® and transvaginal ultrasound. In this way, Avant’s innovative product will promote earlier diagnoses and, as a result, improved survival rates for patients with ovarian cancer.

As it continues to seek FDA approval for its groundbreaking diagnostic technology, Avant is poised to promote considerable growth in the ovarian cancer market, addressing what is currently the most deadly cancer of the female reproductive system. The company will lean on the industry experience of its management team in order to continue positioning itself for long-term success in the medical diagnostic market.

For more information, visit https://avantdiagnostics.wordpress.com/

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Today we released a new audio interview with Dr. Chris D’Couto, president and CEO of NEAH Power Systems, Inc. (OTC: NPWZ), an innovator of long-lasting, efficient and safe power solutions for military, transportation and portable electronics applications. The interview can be heard at www.QualityStocks.net/interview-npwz.php.

NEAH Power Systems’ interview begins with a brief discussion in which Dr. D’Couto describes the company’s three heavily patented technologies that supply off-grid energy needs for defense, commercial and consumer markets: the Powerchip® full cell; Formira Hydrogen on Demand (Formira HOD); and the BuzzBar™ suite of products.

Dr. D’Couto next describes the core competencies of NEAH Power Systems’ management team and how they contribute to the corporation’s strategies.

“We’re very fortunate to have a pretty diverse team that focuses on different skill sets and are very complementary and needed to grow the company,” says Dr. D’Couto, whose PhD in chemical engineering and MBA are further accentuated by his 15 years of experience helping multi-million dollar companies bring to market various products and technologies.

After a more detailed look at NEAH Power Systems’ technologies, conversation turns to the company’s numerous accomplishments in 2015, which include ongoing discussions with parties in China related to licensing and manufacturing Formira HOD; the advancement of its pending acquisition of Shorai, which reported $4 million in revenue for full-year 2014; the shipment of three PowerChip® units to the government of India; and other milestones discussed in the company’s recent update to shareholders (http://neahpower.com/2015/09/august-2015-update-to-shareholders/).

Dr. D’Couto concludes the interview with a brief but exciting insight of what’s to come in the near-term future.

For more information, visit www.neahpower.com

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ENGlobal Corporation, a Houston-based automation systems engineering company, is known worldwide for the design of state-of-the-art plant automation systems. Although serving a number of markets, the company is perhaps best known for their support of the energy industry, and therein lies a remarkable fact. Although the energy industry has been hit with challenges like never before, ENGlobal has not only managed to remain financially strong, returning to profitability while so many other energy related companies have suffered, it has grown technologically, developing sophisticated automation solutions that are now critical to an industry under pressure to reduce costs and grow operational efficiencies. ENG is expected to benefit significantly from the growing demand for energy infrastructure upgrades.

With operations in Texas, Colorado, Alabama, and Oklahoma, servicing projects worldwide, ENGlobal’s focus is on EPCM (Engineering, Procurement, Construction Management), and automation.

For the upstream, midstream, and downstream energy industries, the ENGlobal’s EPCM segment supports:

• Consulting Services
• Construction Management
• Mechanical Integrity
• In-Plant Staffing
• Quality Assurance
• Plant Asset Management

In addition, the company’s Government Services group in the EPCM segment specializes in the turnkey installation and maintenance of automation and instrumentation systems for the U.S. defense industry worldwide, providing engineering, design, and installation, as well as operation and maintenance, of various government, public sector, and international facilities.

On the Automation side, ENGlobal provides design, assembly, programming, installation, integration and servicing, of process control, analytical, and heat tracing systems for specific applications in the energy and processing related industries. They also perform fabrication and implementation of process distributed control and analyzer systems, advanced automation, and related information technology services.

Although ENGlobal is consistently ranked as one of the top engineering design firms, serving a growing market, with a superior performance and financial record, a recent Seeking Alpha article (http://seekingalpha.com/article/3431716-englobal-is-a-great-deep-value-micro-cap-energy-play) says they are undervalued, and states that ENGlobal offers long-term investors an “enormous long-run upside,” with “a potential to make at least a 220% return in 3 years.”

For more information on the company, visit www.ENGlobal.com

Since implementing its updated corporate goals at the beginning of 2014, MIT Holding, Inc. has made tremendous progress toward capitalizing on the steady growth of the medical industry. In the second quarter of 2015, this progress materialized into the first profitable quarter in the company’s history, as well as an 80 percent year-over-year increase in total sales. With profitability achieved, MITD is now firmly focused on promoting national expansion through both organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Through these efforts, the company will look to continue refining its first-of-its-kind, comprehensive recovery concept, which facilitates and assists patients from the time of their release from a hospital through to a full in-home recovery.

“The first six months of profit and growth validate our strategy and approach to our business model,” Walter Drakeford, chief executive officer of MITD, stated in a news release. “The unabated growth in the medical industry is creating headwinds, contributing to our continued growth and profitability.”

MITD is also benefitting from the medical industry’s ongoing shift toward value-based purchasing options. Rather than continuing to reward healthcare providers based solely on volume of care delivered, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has recently pushed for a move toward less expensive, value-based care. In 2014, an estimated 20 percent of Medicare reimbursements had shifted away from volume-based payment frameworks, and HHS has set a goal to have 85 percent of Medicare fee-for-service payments in value-based purchasing categories by 2016.

As a result of this market shift, the United States home infusion market is expected to achieve steady growth moving forward, climbing at a compound annual growth rate of just over 9 percent through 2020. According to a report by Harris Williams & Co., home or alternate site home infusion services present patients with a dramatic 90 percent daily cost savings as compared to receiving the same services in a traditional hospital setting.

With its first quarter of profitability now in the books and an established expansion plan in place, MITD is in a favorable position to capitalize on the pivot toward value-based care options while continuing to promote market growth. Look for the company to lean on the marketability of its comprehensive recovery concept, as well as the strong performance of the medical industry, in order to promote sustainable returns.

For more information on MIT Holding, visit http://mitholdinginc.com/

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