Drainage is a common practice in geotechnical engineering concerning dredged marine soils. Current drainage techniques, including surcharge preloading, vacuum preloading, and combined vacuum-surcharge preloading, have been proven to be effective in soft soil treatment, but are also criticized for their high energy consumption. This paper made a brief review on existing drainage techniques and proposed some prospects for the next-generation techniques in response to the public concern of sustainability. It is found that all conventional preloading techniques have been well studied from tests to modeling, and improved vacuum preloading tends to be used in combination with other techniques. Drainage techniques with lower energy consumption can be realized either by using renewable energy or designing biomimetic devices. The paper is expected to provide a comprehensive while concise report on recent advances in drainage techniques for dredged marine soils and in the meanwhile give an insight into the further development towards a more sustainable future.

The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), is a destructive pest that causes significant damage worldwide. Because of import limitations, this Diptera and Tephritidae insect impedes raw agricultural commodities. Commonly, insecticides are applied through cover sprays. Despite their effectiveness, some of these compounds are prohibited in importing jurisdictions owing to environmental and public health concerns. Biological control started with new natural enemies such as wasps, mites, parasitoids, pathogenic fungi, bacteria, and nematodes. Recently, research has focused on finding new options and efficient solutions, notably on the genetic and post-genetic signals of sterilization and sexing of wild types to obtain specific strains for area-wide Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs. Attempts are also being made to deploy innovative technologies for monitoring and managing this pest. Ceratitis capitata's whole genome sequence was recently deciphered. Its editing is another supplement to improve female-to-male conversion and, thus, the performance of reared insects to promote the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). This review looks at significant progress in physical and biological control, eco-friendly and quarantine solutions, and next-generation technologies for managing the medfly pest, with a particular emphasis on the Mediterranean region.

Knowledge of the thermal state of mountain permafrost has greatly increased since 2007 with the establishment of numerous new monitoring stations around the world. Data collected at these sites have pointed to longer-term changes in ground temperatures, which seem to have increased during the last two to three decades in cold permafrost, while in ground close to 0 degrees C the near-surface ice content has restricted warming and similar trends are not apparent. Modelling of mountain permafrost has developed greatly, driven by general circulation models or gridded temperature maps, through both predictive methods and spatial equilibrium and transient approaches. The spatial resolution of climate parameters, which is normally much coarser than the spatial heterogeneity of alpine environments, presents a major problem for modelling studies. This is a fundamental challenge for future research. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.