Horticultural Reviews presents state-of-the-art reviews on topics in horticultural science and technology covering both basic and applied research. Topics covered include the horticulture of fruits, vegetables, nut crops, and ornamentals. These review articles, written by world authorities, bridge the gap between the specialized researcher and the broader community of horticultural scientists and teachers.

Besides increasing crop yield to feed the growing population, improving crop quality is a challenging and key issue. Indeed, quality determines consumer acceptability and increases the attractivity of fresh and processed products. In this respect, fruit and vegetables, which represent a main source of vitamins and other health compounds, play a major role in human diet. This is the case in developing countries where populations are prone to nutritional deficiencies, but this is also a pending issue worldwide, where the growing middle class is increasingly aware and in search of healthy food. So a future challenge for the global horticultural industry will be to answer the demand for better quality food in a changing environment, where many resources will be limited. This e-collection collates state-of-the-art research on the quality of horticultural crops, covering the underlying physiological processes, the genetic and environmental controls during plant and organ development and the postharvest evolution of quality during storage and processing.

This two-volume set constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advancement of Science and Technology, ICAST 2020, which took place in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, in October 2020. The 74 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 200 submissions of which 157 were sent out for peer review. The papers present economic and technologic developments in modern societies in 6 tracks: Chemical, food and bio-process engineering; Electrical and computer engineering; IT, computer science and software engineering; Civil, water resources, and environmental engineering; Mechanical and industrial engineering; Material science and engineering.