Apples are one of the most highly consumed fruits globally, with estimations that almost 88 million tonnes of apples are produced worldwide each year. As a result of this popularity, consumers have extremely high expectations of the sensory quality of the apples they consume. Improving the quality of apples provides a comprehensive review of the wealth of research on the processes which determine the key quality attributes of apples, including texture, flavour and nutritional content. The book addresses how these properties can be enhanced during the pre- and postharvest stages to ensure product quality and customer satisfaction, as well as the role of breeding programmes in identifying genes directly related to sensory quality characteristics. In its detailed exploration of the key quality attributes of apples, the book provides its readers with an insight into the science behind producing the 'perfect' product and how influential quality attributes are on consumer purchasing behaviours.

Cinema Inferno: Celluloid Explosions from the Cultural Margins addresses significant areas (and eras) of "transgressive" filmmaking, including many subgenres and styles that have not yet received much critical attention. This collection of essays covers both contemporary films and those produced in the last 50 years to provide a theoretical framework for looking at transgressive cinema and what that means. This volume begins with a number of essays that examine the aesthetic of "realism," tracing it through the late Italian Neo-Realism of Pasolini, the early films of Melvin Van Peebles, and Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. Another section focuses on '70s Italian horror and thrillers, including a substantially different examination of filmmaker Dario Argento, as well as essays on critically underrepresented directors Lucio Fulci and Sergio Martino. A section on New York looks at both radical independents like Troma and Andy Milligan, as well as the social context from which a view of the metropolis-in-decay emerged. Sections also cover the experimental work of the Vienna Action Group and controversial filmmaker Michael Haneke, as well as films and genres too idiosyncratic and disturbing to fit anywhere else, including analyses of Nazi propaganda films, fundamentalist Christian "scare" movies, and postwar Japanese youth films. The final essays try to come to terms with a mainstream flirtation with "transgressive" film and Grindhouse aesthetics.

While there are numerous books on art and exploitation cinema, very few attempt to examine both. Covering the first 100 years of cinematic transgressions, From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse is a collection of numerous essays representing key contributions to overlooked, forgotten, or under-analyzed parts of film history. From cult favorites like Arch Hall Jr. to revered but under-documented marquee names like Lon Chaney, filmmakers both major and minor are covered here. Starting with a section that pairs exploitation pioneers like Dwain Esper alongside cutting edge auteurs like Erich Von Stroheim, the volume documents the bleeding edge of the high/low cultural divide. Other essays examine the sexual melodramas of Weimer German cinema, explore the concept of Borat as a model for the new standardized cult film, and discuss the films of directors Tod Browning, Pier Pasolini, and Peter Watkins. This volume also contains a section devoted to the idea of "reality" inside and outside the documentary sphere, emphasizing audiences' desire to believe that "this is really happening," whether they're horrified or titillated. Addressing many aspects of "transgression" in cinema, these essays suggest that the distance between the venues and the audiences may not be quite as wide as viewers might imagine.

In A Jewish Jesuit in the Eastern Mediterranean, Robert Clines retraces the conversion and missionary career of Giovanni Battista Eliano, the only Jewish-born member of the Society of Jesus. He highlights the lived experience of conversion, and how converts dealt with others' skepticism of their motives. Clines uses primary sources, including Eliano's personal letters, missionary reports, and autobiography, together with scholarship on conversion in the early modern Mediterranean world to illustrate how false and sincere conversion often mirrored each other in outward performance. Devout converts were not readily taken at face value and needed to prove themselves in the moment and over the course of their lifetimes. Consequently, Eliano's story underscores that the mystical, introspective nature of religious belief and the formulation of new spiritual selves came into direct confrontation with the ways in which converts needed to present themselves to others in an age of political and religious turmoil.