Engaging school governance leaders to influence physical activity policies.

Background: Most youth are not meeting physical activity guidelines, and schools are a key venue for providing physical activity. School districts can provide physical activity opportunities through the adoption, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies. This paper reports results of a 2009 survey of California school governance leaders on the barriers and opportunities to providing school-based physical activity and strategies to promote adoption of evidence-based policies.

Polymer gel templating of free-standing inorganic monoliths for photocatalysis.

We have developed a simple, low-cost process to fabricate free-standing porous metal oxide monoliths. Various swollen polymers and hydrogels possessing an open network structure are infiltrated with pure liquid metal alkoxide. Hydrolysis followed by chemical or thermal degradation of the polymer leads to bulk porous monoliths, TiO2 and SiO2 as initial examples.