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Several risk management frameworks have been introduced in the literature for maritime Pollution Preparedness and Response (PPR). However, in light of the actual needs of the competent authorities, there is still a lack of framework that is established on a sound risk conceptual basis, addresses the different risk management decision-making contexts of organizations, and provides tools for various risk management questions of this field. To alleviate the limits of existing approaches, this paper introduces a new risk management framework for this purpose, which was developed in cooperation with the competent authorities and other maritime experts. The framework adopts the risk-informed decision-making strategy and includes three aligned components. The first component provides a unified theoretical risk concept to the framework through an interpretation of the Society for Risk Analysis risk approach. The second consists of four ISO 31000:2018 standard based processes focused on different risk management decision-making contexts of the PPR organizations. The third comprises a set of practical risk assessment tools to generate the needed information. A case study provides an example of the functionality of this framework with integrated data from the northern Baltic Sea. To conclude, a risk concept is provided for the PPR authorities and their stakeholders as well as processes for managing the risk and tools for its assessment., (Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Nanotechnology has attracted considerable interest in the field of biomedicine, where various nanoparticles (NPs) have been introduced as efficient drug carrier systems. Mesoporous silicon (PSi) is one of the most promising materials in this field due to its low toxicity, good biodegradability, high surface area, tunable pore size and controllable surface functionality. However, recognition by the reticuloendothelial system and particle agglomeration hinder the use of PSi for intravenous applications. The present paper describes a dual-PEGylation method, where two PEG molecules with different sizes (0.5 and 2 kDa) were grafted simultaneously in a single process onto thermally oxidized PSi NPs to form a high-density PEG coating with both brush-like and mushroom-like conformation. The material was characterized in detail and the effects of the dual-PEGylation on cell viability, protein adsorption and macrophage uptakes were evaluated. The results show that dual-PEGylation improves the colloidal stability of the NPs in salt solutions, prolongs their half-lives, and minimizes both protein adsorption and macrophage uptake. Therefore, these new dual-PEGylated PSi NPs are potential candidates for intravenous applications., (Copyright © 2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)