Football Helmet Safety in Three Simple Steps

As the high school and college football seasons heat up, the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) is encouraging parents, coaches and athletes to refresh their knowledge on helmet safety and safe play.Keep these three simple steps in mind:1. Know Your Helmet There are no concussion-proof helmets. No football helmet completely prevents all head injuries, including concussions.A concussion is a complex event that involves a variety of factors. Advertising or other media claims that a particular helmet is anti-concussion or concussion-proof are not supported by research and can be misleading and dangerous.

Avoid relying on any single data point, rating or measurement when considering helmet options.Proper fit is critical. Helmets are designed for safety and performance based on proper fit, specifically contact with the head. Ask your athlete how the helmet feels — helmets should not be too tight or too loose. Find fitting and wearing instructions through the CDC Foundation at www.cdcfoundation.org/HeadsUp.Look for the logo on the back of the helmet that reads, "Meets NOCSAE Standard."

The NOCSAE logo signifies that a helmet model has passed the most rigorous, science-based performance standards in the world.Do not alter or change your football helmet. Adding accessories and removing padding can alter how the helmet was intended to function and potentially interfere with its performance.2. Maintain Your HelmetHelmets should be reconditioned and recertified to the NOCSAE standard on a regular basis. Helmets that have been recertified will have a label inside the helmet indicating the name of the recertifying company and the date of recertification.

If you have doubts, ask your coach or school administrator about their policy for reconditioning and recertification.Replace the helmet after 10 years.3. Prioritize Safe Play Football helmets are just one part of helping to protect against head injuries. Use proper blocking and tackling techniques and demand enforcement of rules that prohibit players from leading with their helmets to hit other players.Know the signs and symptoms of concussions — which can include headache, nausea, confusion, dizziness and memory difficulties — and encourage everyone to report any and all symptoms. If a concussion has been diagnosed, athletes should not return to play until cleared by medically trained experts following return-to-play guidelines.

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Outdoor Living – Bringing the Inside Out

Enjoying your outside space does not have to take place on a dimly lit patio with moderately comfortable furniture devoid of fine furnishings and sophisticated style. According to the American Lighting Association (ALA), outdoor living can be just as entertaining, high-tech and classy as life inside your home.Regardless of the season, it is becoming common to turn a patio, deck or outdoor space into an additional family room with modern amenities and beautiful furnishings. ALA-member lighting manufacturers are making this transition easier with expanded lines of decorative lighting rated for all-weather use.

Hinkley Lighting’s CEO Rick Wiedemer, CLC, explains how the trend of accessorizing outdoor areas with traditionally indoor lighting products has gained momentum over the last several years. "It started with landscape lighting and then moved into sconces, wall sconces, and now pendants and chandeliers," Wiedemer says.It’s fairly commonplace to use sconces to highlight doorways and step lights to define spaces; today’s homeowners are also hanging elaborate chandeliers and colorful pendants over outside tables. Spotlights can be seen above grills and downlights under covered patios.

With a little creativity and imagination, just about anything goes. And the demand is increasing for those fixtures to mimic the styles and attention to detail traditionally found indoors."People want to extend their indoor living space outside, and still have the same quality of finishes outside as inside," says Rick Seidman, president and CEO of Quoizel, Inc. "They’re putting rugs, televisions and furniture outside, so we almost have to treat [outside] decorative lighting as if it’s interior."Just because the newest outdoor lighting fixtures are beautiful, don’t assume they lack the engineering to withstand harsh temperatures and extreme weather. High-quality outdoor fixtures are designed for reliability and endurance.

"One of the things consumers are concerned about when shopping for lighting is durability," says Seidman. "It really has to be able to withstand the elements. With new technology, fixture finishes are actually built into the material so that it weathers beautifully."Wiedemer concurs."You want to have something that’s meant to be in the weather. Normally a rustic finish fixture will weather better," he says. "The principal thing these are engineered for is to be rained upon. Rain will not collect inside the fixture, it will drain out…. A typical interior fixture is not made that way."The latest all-weather lighting is at your local ALA-member showroom.For a listing of showrooms or to view outdoor lighting videos, go to americanlightingassoc.com.

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Help for Homeowners On the Hook for Billions in Hurricane Damages

And now comes the arduous task of rebuilding hundreds of thousands of houses destroyed or damaged by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.And with it, alas, the realization by all too many homeowners that they’re the ones on the hook for the cost of a large chunk of their own repair work.The main reason? In a word: flooding.While areas like the Florida Keys were decimated by winds that reached 130 mph — a quarter of all houses there were demolished and another 65 percent suffered major damage — a lot of the wreckage from this summer’s double wallop came from floodwaters. And since homeowners’ insurance policies typically cover wind and hail but exclude (you guessed it) flood damage.

Well, even given the miscellany of federal, state and local aid programs out there, you can see why some estimate the total out-of-pocket costs for Texas and Florida homeowners at $28 billion and $13.1 billion respectively."There’s going to be a huge uninsured economic loss here," Pete Mills, a senior vice president at the Mortgage Bankers Association, has said.As in past emergencies, fellow Americans immediately joined a long list of companies like Apple, Verizon, and Chevron in donating truckloads of money, clothes, and other products to help with the relief efforts.One of the latest corporate initiatives seems especially apt, given all those houses that need to be rebuilt.In what it says is a first-of-its kind program for them,

GAF, North America’s largest roofing manufacturer, is offering a special financing program for homeowners in need of roof repairs in FEMA-designated areas for individual assistance of Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Through November 30, 2017, they can take advantage of zero percent interest over 36 months of equal payments."The hurricanes have had a devastating impact on so many people," said Jim Schnepper, president of GAF. "We recognize that restoring communities begins with getting homeowners back into their homes as quickly as possible, with a roof they can trust to protect the things that matter most in their lives."Know that the financing is available only through GAF factory-certified contractors, who can be located through the company’s website at gaf.com/rebuild.

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Solving A Major Problem in Additive Manufacturing

A new approach to making everything from jet engines to toys, called 3D printing, is creating a revolution in manufacturing — and a small company called Sigma Labs, Inc (NASDAQ:SGLB) has an enabling technology that can make it happen.In traditional manufacturing, companies start with metal or other materials, then cut, shape or drill the material to get the finished products.In the late 1980s, however, researchers at MIT came up with a radical new idea. Instead of cutting material away, why not build things by adding layer after successive layer? The method they developed was similar to printing ink onto paper, only in three dimensions.

3D printing, also called "additive manufacturing," is now becoming big business. GE Aviation uses it to build jet engine fuel nozzles, for instance, instead of welding together 20 small pieces. Technology Review recently named additive manufacturing one of its 10 "Breakthrough Technologies."But 3D printing turns out to have a major challenge: It’s extraordinarily difficult to build identical top-quality parts every single time. In fact, Sigma Labs has now solved this problem, ensuring that every part and product is built correctly.How?

The company uses sensors to measure key parameters such as the temperatures of the material as each layer is deposited. Then it uses sophisticated algorithms to process the data, and to determine if the resulting part meets customer quality standards."When we monitor every layer, for every part, we can tell if it’s a good part," explains John Rice, CEO of Sigma Labs.Sigma has installed its PrintRite 3D system at 3D manufacturing facilities for more than a dozen key companies, such as Siemens, Honeywell, Woodward, and Pratt & Whitney.Rice envisions that, once the technology is proven in actual operations, Sigma’s patent-protected approach may fuel explosive growth in 3D printing, and become an essential part of 3D metal manufacturing operations, dreaming of "Sigma Inside," such as Intel chips in personal computers."This has the potential to be a major transformative technology by enabling the leap to volume AM metal production," says Rice.

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