This specially curated collection features six reviews of current and key research on genetic modification of crops. The first chapter reviews key challenges facing banana production, primarily the risk of species decimation by diseases such as Fusarium wilt, and considers how genetic modification may be a solution to this. The second chapter discusses the development and establishment of 'Golden Rice' - a biofortified variety designed as a health intervention to help alleviate the problem of vitamin A deficiency. The third chapter details recent advances in the genetic modification of important agronomic traits of soybean crops, such as herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. The fourth chapter addresses progress in and prospects for transgenic interventions in the improvement of grain legumes, concentrating on chickpea, pigeonpea, cowpea and more. The fifth chapter reviews recent research efforts in the production of genetically modified (GM) oil palm plants and looks towards establishing stable lines of commercially viable GM varieties. The final chapter describes recent progress relating to transgenic modification of cassava and how future research can strengthen food security and commercialization of the crop.

The far-wing line shape theory within the binary collision and quasistatic framework has been developed using the coordinate representation. Within this formalism, the main computational task is the evaluation of multidimensional integrals whose variables are the orientational angles needed to specify the initial and final positions of the system during transition processes. Using standard methods, one is able to evaluate the 7-dimensional integrations required for linear molecular systems, or the 7-dimensional integrations for more complicated asymmetric-top (or symmetric-top) molecular systems whose interaction potential contains cyclic coordinates. In order to obviate this latter restriction on the form of the interaction potential, a Monte Carlo method is used to evaluate the 9-dimensional integrations required for systems consisting of one asymmetric-top (or symmetric-top) and one linear molecule, such as H20-N2. Combined with techniques developed previously to deal with sophisticated potential models, one is able to implement realistic potentials for these systems and derive accurate, converged results for the far-wing line shapes and the corresponding absorption coefficients. Conversely, comparison of the far-wing absorption with experimental data can serve as a sensitive diagnostic tool in order to obtain detailed information on the short-range anisotropic dependence of interaction potentials.