The Manager as a Planner and Strategist Essay Example for Free

The Manager as a Planner and Strategist Essay The Nature of the Planning Process: Planning is a process that managers use to identify and select appropriate goals and courses of action for an organization. The cluster of decisions and actions that managers take to help an organization attain its goals is its strategy. Thus, planning is both a goal-making and a strategy-making process. Planning is a three-step activity: 1)Determining the organization’s mission and goals: A mission statement is a broad declaration of an organization’s purpose that identifies the organization’s products and customers and distinguishes the organization from its competitors. 2)Formulating Strategy: Managers analyze the organization’s current situation and then convince and develop the strategies necessary to attain the organization’s mission and goals. 3)Implementing Strategy: Managers decide how to allocate the resources and responsibilities required to implement the strategies between people and groups within the organization. Levels of Planning: In large organizations planning takes place at three levels of management: Corporate Level, Business or Division Level, and Department or Functional Level. The Corporate-level plan contains top management’s decisions pertaining to the organization’s mission and goals, overall strategy, and structure. Corporate-level strategy indicates in which industries and national markets an organization intends to compete. The corporate-level plan provides the framework within which divisional managers create their business-level plans. A division is a business unit that has its own set of managers and functions or departments and competes in a distinct industry. Divisional managers are those who control the various divisions of an organization. At the business level, the managers of each division create a Business-level plan that details long-term goals that will allow the division to meet corporate goals and the division’s business-level strategy and structure. Business-level strategy states the methods a division or business intends to use to compete against its rivals in an industry. The business-level plan provides the framework within which functional managers devise their plans. A Function is a unit or department in which people have the same skills or use the same resources to perform their jobs. Functional managers are those who supervise the various functions such as manufacturing, accounting, and sales within a division. A Functional-level plan states the goals that functional managers propose to pursue to help the division attain its business-level goals, which, in turn, allow the organization to achieve its corporate goals. Functional-level strategy sets forth the actions that managers intend to take at the level of departments to allow the organization to attain its goals. An important issue in planning is ensuring consistency in planning across the three different levels. Functional goals and strategies should be consistent with divisional goals and strategies, which in turn should be consistent with corporate goals and strategies, and vice versa. Once complete, each function’s plan is normally linked to its division’s business-level plan, which, in turn, is linked to the corporate plan. Who Plans? In general, corporate-level planning is the primary responsibility of top managers. Corporate-level managers are responsible for approving business and functional-level plans to ensure that they are consistent with the corporate plan. Corporate planning decisions are not made in a vacuum. Other managers do have input to corporate-level planning. Even though corporate-level planning is the responsibility of top managers, lower-level managers can and usually are given the opportunity to become involved in the process. At the business level, planning is the responsibility of divisional managers, who also review functional plans. Functional managers also participate in business-level planning. Similarly, although the functional managers bear primary responsibility for functional-level planning, they can and do involve their subordinates in this process. Time Horizons of Plans: Plans differ in their time horizons, or intended durations. Managers usually distinguish among long-term plans, with a horizon of five years or more; intermediate-term plans, with a horizon between one and five years; and short-term plans, with a horizon of one year or less. Typically, corporate- and business-level goals and strategies require long and intermediate-term plans, and functional-level goals and strategies require intermediate and short term plans. Most organizations have an annual planning cycle, which usually linked to the annual financial budget. Although a corporate- or business-level plan may extend over five years or more, it is typically treated as a rolling plan, a plan that is updated and amended every year to take account of changing conditions in the external environment. Rolling plans allow managers to make midcourse corrections if environmental changes warrant or to change the thrust of the plan altogether if it no longer seems appropriate. Standing Plans and Single-Use Plans: Managers create standing and single-use plans to help achieve an organization’s specific goals. Standing plans are used in situations in which programmed decision making is appropriate. When the same situations occur repeatedly, managers develop policies (a general guide to action), rules (a formal, written guide to action), and standard operating procedures (SOP a written instruction describing the exact series of actions that should be followed in a specific situation) to control the way employees perform tasks. Single-use plans are developed to handle nonprogrammed decision making in unusual or one-of-a-kind situations. It includes Programs, which are integrated sets of plans for achieving certain goals, and Projects, which are specific action plans created to complete various aspects of a program. Why Planning is Important? Planning determines where an organization is at the present time and decides where it should be in the future and how to move it forward. When mangers plan, they must consider the future and forecast what may happen in order to take actions in the present and mobilize organizational resources to deal with future opportunities and threats. However, the external environment is uncertain and complex, and managers typically must deal with incomplete information and bounded rationality. Almost all managers engage in planning. The absence of a plan often results in hesitations, false steps, and mistaken changes of direction that can hurt an organization. Planning is important for four main reasons: 1)Planning is a useful way of getting managers to participate in decision making about the appropriate goals and strategies for an organization. 2)Planning is necessary to give the organization a sense of direction and purpose. A plan states what goals an organization is trying to achieve and what strategies it intends to use to achieve them. 3)A plan helps coordinate managers of the different functions and divisions of an organization to ensure that they all pull in the same direction. 4)A plan can be used as a device for controlling managers within an organization. A good plan specifies not only which goals and strategies the organization is committed to but also who is responsible for putting the strategies into action to attain the goals. Henri Fayol said that effective plans should have four qualities: Unity: Means that at any one time only one central, guiding plan is put into operation to achieve an organizational goal. Continuity: Means that planning is an ongoing process in which managers build and refine previous plans and continually modify plans at all levels so that they fit together into one broad framework. Accuracy: Means that managers need to make every attempt to collect and utilize all available information at their disposal in the planning process. Flexibility: Means that plans can be altered and changed if the situation changes. Scenario Planning: One way in which managers can try to create plans that have the four qualities described by Fayol is by utilizing scenario planning (Contingency planning), which is the generation of multiple forecasts of future conditions followed by an analysis of how to respond effectively to each of those conditions. Planning is about trying to forecast and predict the future in order to be able to anticipate future opportunities and threats. Because the future is unpredictable, the only reasonable approach to planning is first to generate scenarios of the future based of different assumptions about conditions that might prevail in the future and then to develop different plans that detail what a company should do in the event that one of these scenarios actually occurs. The great strength of scenario planning is its ability not only to anticipate the challenges of an uncertain future but also to educate managers to think about the future – to think strategically. Determining the Organization’s Mission and Goals: Determining the organization’s mission and goals is the first step of the planning process. Once the mission and goals are agreed upon and formally stated in the corporate plan, they guide the next steps by defining which strategies are appropriate and which are inappropriate. Defining the Business: To determine an organization’s mission, managers must first define its business so that they can identify what kind of value they will provide to customers. To define the business, managers must ask three questions: (1) Who are our customers? (2) What customer needs are being satisfied? (3) How are we satisfying customer needs? Answering these questions helps managers to identify not only the customer needs they are satisfying now but the needs they should try to satisfy in the future and who their true competitors are. All of this information helps managers plan and establish appropriate goals. Establishing Major Goals: Once the business is defined, managers must establish a set of primary goals to which the organization is committed. Developing these goals gives the organization a sense of direction or purpose. In most organizations, articulating major goals is the job of the CEO, although other managers have input into the process. The best statements of organizational goals are ambitious – that is, they stretch the organization and require the managers improve its performance capabilities. Although goals should be challenging, they should also be realistic. Challenging goals give managers an incentive to look for ways to improve an organization’s operation, but a goal that is unrealistic and impossible to attain may prompt managers to give up. The time period in which a goal is expected to be achieved should be stated. Time constraints are important because they emphasize that a goal must be attained within a reasonable period. Formulating Strategy: In strategy formulation managers analyze an organization’s current situation and then develop strategies to accomplish its mission and achieve its goals. Strategy formulation begins with managers’ analyzing the factors within an organization and outside, that affect the organization’s ability to meet its goals now and in the future. SWOT analysis and the five forces model are two techniques managers use to analyze these factors. SWOT Analysis: SWOT analysis is a planning exercise in which managers identify organizational Strengths, Weaknesses, environmental Opportunities, and Threats. Based on a SWOT analysis, managers at the different levels of the organization select the corporate-, business-, and functional-level strategies to best position the organization to achieve its mission and goals. The first step in SWOT analysis is to identify an organization’s strengths and weaknesses. The task facing managers is to identify the strengths and weaknesses that characterize the present state of their organization. The second step begins when managers embark on a full-scale SWOT planning exercise to identify potential opportunities and threats in the environment that affect the organization at the present or may affect it in the future. With the SWOT analysis completed, and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats identified, managers can begin the planning process and determine strategies for achieving the organization’s mission and goals. The resulting strategies should enable the organization to attain its goals by taking advantage of opportunities, countering threats, building strengths, and correcting organizational weaknesses. The Five Forces Model: Michel Porter’s five forces model: A well-known model that helps managers isolate particular forces in the external environment that are potential threats. Porter identified these five factors that are major threats because they affect how much profit organizations competing within the same industry can expect to make. 1)The level of rivalry among organizations in an industry: The more that companies compete against one another for customers, the lower is the level of industry profits. 2)The potential for entry into an industry: The easier it is for companies to enter an industry, the more likely it is for industry prices and therefore industry profits to be low. 3)The power of suppliers: If there are only a few suppliers of an important input, then suppliers can drive up the price of that input, and expensive inputs result in lower profits for the producer. 4)The power of customers: If only a few large customers are available to buy an industry’s output, they can bargain to drive down the price of that output. As a result, producers make lower profits. 5)The threat of substitute products: Often, the output of one industry is a substitute for the output of another industry. Companies that produce a product with a known substitute cannot demand high prices for their products, and this constraint keeps their profits low. Porter argued that when managers analyze opportunities and threats they should pay particular attention to these five forces because they are the major threats that an organization will encounter. It is the job of managers at corporate, business, and functional levels to formulate strategies to counter these threats so that an organization can respond to its task and general environments, perform at high level, and generate high profits. Formulating Corporate-Level Strategies: Corporate-level strategy is a plan of action concerning which industries and countries an organization should invest its resources in to achieve its mission and goals. Managers of most organizations have the goal of growing their companies and actively seek out new opportunities to use the organization’s resources to create more goods and services for customers. In addition, some managers must help their organizations respond to threats due to changing forces in the task or general environment. (Ex. Customers may no longer buy some kinds of goods or services, or other companies enter the market and attract away customers). Top managers aim to find the best strategies to help the organization respond to these changes and improve performance. The principal corporate-level strategies that managers use to help a company grow, to keep it on top of its industry, and to help it retrench and reorganize to stop its decline are: Concentration on a Single Business, Diversification, International Expansion and Vertical Integration. An organization benefits from pursuing any one of them only when the strategy helps further increase the value of the organization’s goods and services for customers. To increase the value of goods and services, a corporate-level strategy must help an organization differentiate and add value to its products either by making them unique or special or by lowering the costs of value creation. 1)Concentration on a Single Business: Most organizations begin their growth and development with a corporate-level strategy aimed at concentrating resources in one business or industry in order to develop a strong competitive position within the industry. Sometimes, concentration on a single business becomes an appropriate corporate-level strategy when managers see the need to reduce the size of their organizations to increase performance. Managers may decide to get out of certain industries. Managers may sell off those divisions, lay off workers, and concentrate remaining organizational resources in another market or business to try to improve performance. In contrast, when organizations are performing effectively, they often decide to enter new industries in which they can use their resources to create more value. 2)Diversification: Diversification is the strategy of expanding operations into a new business or industry and producing new goods or services. There are two main kinds of diversification: Related and Unrelated. Related Diversification: Is the strategy of entering a new business or industry to create a competitive advantage in one or more of an organization’s existing divisions or businesses. It can add value to an organization’s products if managers can find ways for its various divisions or business units to share their valuable skills or resources so that synergy is created. Synergy is obtained when the value created by two divisions cooperating is greater than the value that would be created if the two divisions operated separately. In this way, related diversification can be a major source of cost savings. In pursuing related diversification, managers often seek to find new businesses where they can use the existing skills and resources in their departments to create synergies, add value to the new business, and hence improve the competitive position of the company. Unrelated Diversification: Managers pursue unrelated diversification when they enter new industries or buy companies in new industries that are not related in any way to their current business or industries. Main reasons for pursuing unrelated diversification: †¢Buy a poorly performing company, transfers to it their management skills, turn around its business, and increase its performance, all of which creates value. †¢Purchasing businesses in different industries lets managers engage in portfolio strategy, which is apportioning financial resources among divisions to increase financial returns or spread risks among different businesses. Sometimes, too much diversification can cause mangers to lose control on their organization’s core business. Although unrelated diversification might initially create value for a company, mangers sometimes use portfolio strategy to expand the scope of their organization’s business too much. And so, it becomes difficult for top managers to be knowledgeable about all of the organization’s diverse business. Unable to handle so much information, top managers are overwhelmed and eventually make important resource allocation decisions on the basis of only a superficial analysis of the competitive position of each division. This usually results in value being lost rather than created. 3)International Expansion: Corporate-level managers must decide on the appropriate way to compete internationally. If managers decide that their organization should sell the same standardized product in each national market in which it competes, and use the same basic marketing approach, they adopt a Global Strategy. Such companies undertake very little, if any, customization to suit the specific needs of customers in different countries. But if managers decide to customize products and marketing strategies to specific national conditions, they adopt a Multidomestic Strategy. The major advantage of a global strategy is the significant cost savings associated with not having to customize products and marketing approaches to different national conditions. The major disadvantage is that, by ignoring national differences, managers may leave themselves vulnerable to local competitors that do differentiate their products to suit local tastes. The major advantage of a Multidomestic strategy is that by customizing product offerings and marketing approaches to local conditions, managers may be able to gain market share or charge higher prices for their products. The major disadvantage is that customization raises production costs and puts the Multidomestic company at a price disadvantage because it often has to charge prices higher than the prices charged by competitors pursuing a global strategy. Choosing a Way to Expand Internationally: A more competitive global environment has proved to be both an opportunity and a threat for organizations and managers. The opportunity is that organizations that expand globally are able to open new markets, reach more customers, and gain access to new sources of raw materials and to low-cost suppliers of inputs. The threat is that organizations are likely to encounter new competitors in the foreign countries they enter and must respond to new political, economic, and cultural conditions. Before setting up foreign operations, managers need to analyze the forces in the environment of a particular country in order to choose the right method to expand and respond to those forces in the most appropriate way. There are four basic ways to operate in the global environment: a)Importing and Exporting: The least complex global operations are exporting and importing. A company engaged in exporting makes products at home and sells them abroad. An organization might sell its own products abroad or allow a local organization in the foreign country to distribute its products. Few risks are associated with exporting because a company does not have to invest in developing manufacturing facilities abroad. A company engaged in importing sells at home products that are made abroad. The internet has made it much easier for companies to inform potential foreign buyers about their products. b)Licensing And Franchising: In licensing, a company allows a foreign organization to take charge of both manufacturing and distributing one or more of its products in the licensee’s country or world region in return for a negotiable fee (Pursued by manufacturing company). The advantage is that the licenser does not have to bear the development costs associated with opening up in a foreign country. The risks associated with this strategy are that the company granting the license has to give its foreign partner access to its technological know-how. In franchising, a company sells to a foreign organization the rights to use its brand name and operating know-how in return for a lump-sum payment and share of the profits. The advantage is that the franchiser does not have to bear the development costs of overseas expansion. The downside is that the organization that grants the franchise may lose control over the way in which the franchise operates and product quality may fall. c)Strategic Alliances: One way to overcome the loss-of-control problems associated with exporting, licensing, and franchising is to expand globally by means of a strategic alliance. In a strategic alliance, managers pool or share their organization’s resources and know-how with those of a foreign company, and the two organizations share the rewards and risks of starting a new venture in a foreign country. A strategic alliance can take the form of a written contract between two or more companies to exchange resources, or it can result in the creation of a new organization. A joint venture is a strategic alliance among two or more companies that agree to jointly establish and share the ownership of a new business. d)Wholly Owned Foreign Subsidiaries: Managers invest in establishing production operations in a foreign country independent of any local direct involvement. Operating alone, without any direct involvement from foreign companies, an organization receives all of the rewards and bears all of the risks associated with operating abroad. This method is much more expensive than the others because it requires a higher level of foreign investment. Advantages: Higher potential returns, reduces the level of risk since managers have full control over all aspects, protect their technology and know-how†¦ 4)Vertical Integration: When an organization is doing well in its business, managers often see new opportunities to create value by either producing their own inputs or distributing their own outputs. Vertical Integration is the corporate-level strategy through which an organization produces its own inputs (backward vertical integration) or distributes and sells its own outputs (forward vertical integration). A major reason why managers pursue vertical integration is that it allows them either to add value to their products by making them special or to lower the costs of value creation. Vertical integration can be a problem when forces in the environment counter the strategies of the organization and make it necessary for managers to reorganize or retrench. Vertical integration can reduce an organization’s flexibility to respond to changing environmental conditions. Formulating Business-Level Strategies: According to Porter, managers must choose between the two basic ways of increasing the value of an organization’s products: Differentiating the product to add value or lowering the costs of value creation. He also argues that managers must choose between serving the whole market or serving just one segment of the market. Based on those choices, managers choose to pursue one of four business-level strategies: 1)Low-Cost Strategy: With a low-cost strategy, managers try to gain a competitive advantage by focusing the energy of all the organization’s departments or functions on driving the organization’s costs down below the costs of its rivals. According to Porter, organizations pursuing a low-cost strategy can sell a product for less than their rivals sell it and yet still make a profit because of their lower costs. Thus, these organizations hope to enjoy competitive advantage based on their low prices. 2)Differentiation Strategy: With a differentiation strategy, managers try to gain a competitive advantage by focusing all the energies of the organization’s departments or functions on distinguishing the organization’s products from those of competitors on one or more important dimensions, such as product design, quality, or after-sales service and support. Often, the process of making products unique and different is expensive. Organizations that successfully pursue a differentiation strategy may be able to charge a premium price for their products, a price usually much higher than the price charged by a low-cost organization. The premium price allows them to recoup their higher cost. 3)Focused Low-Cost Strategy: Managers pursuing a focused low-cost strategy serve one or a few segments of the overall market and aim to make their organization the lowest-cost company serving that segment. 4)Focused-Differentiation Strategy: Managers pursuing a focused differentiated strategy serve just one or a few segments of the market and aim to make their organization the most differentiated company serving that segment. Formulating Functional-Level Strategies: Functional-level strategy is a plan of action to improve the ability of an organization’s functions to create value. It is concerned with the actions that managers of individual functions can take to add value to an organization’s goods and services and thereby increase the value customers receive. The price that customers are prepared to pay for a product indicates how much they value an organization’s products. The more customers value a product, the more they are willing to pay for it. There are two ways in which functions can add value to an organization’s products: 1)Functional managers can lower the costs of creating value so that an organization can attract customers by keeping its prices lower than its competitors’ prices. 2)Functional managers can add value to a product by finding ways to differentiate it from the products of other companies. There must be a fit between functional- and business-level strategies if an organization is to achieve its mission and goal of maximizing the amount of value it gives customers. The better the fit between functional- and business-level strategies, the greater will be the organization’s competitive advantage and its ability to attract customers and the revenue they provide. Each organizational function has an important role to play in the process of lowering costs or adding value to a product. Creating value at the functional level requires the adoption of many state-of-the-art management techniques and practices. All of these techniques can help an organization achieve a competitive advantage by lowering the costs of creating value or by adding value above and beyond that offered by rivals. Planning and Implementing Strategy: After identifying appropriate strategies to attain an organization’s mission and goals, managers confront the challenge of putting those strategies into action. Strategy implementation is a five-step process: 1)Allocating responsibility for implementation to the appropriate individuals or groups. 2)Drafting detailed action plans that specify how a strategy is to be implemented. 3)Establishing a timetable for implementation that includes precise, measurable goals linked to the attainment of the action plan. 4)Allocating appropriate resources to the responsible individuals or groups. 5)Holding specific individuals or groups responsible for the attainment of corporate, divisional, and functional goals. The planning process goes beyond the mere identification of strategies; it also includes actions taken to ensure that the organization actually puts its strategies into action. It should be noted that the plan for implementing a strategy might require radical redesign of the structure of the organization, the development of new control systems, and the adoption of a program for changing the culture of the organization.

TIRF Microscopy for Counting Molecules

TIRF Microscopy for Counting Molecules Robert Konstandelos How TIRF microscopy has enhanced the way single molecules are counted in the bacterial flagellar motor Abstract: The counting of individual molecules is important in order to establish how many molecules there are in a particular system. TIRF microscopy is one method to count molecules. The bacterial flagellar motor is a complex system in which motility protein B molecules can be counted using TIRF. Discussion is given for a key research topic based on counting of molecular subunits of this motor. Reviews of the background areas, limitations and confirmations of this research are conducted, and a discussion of the research and its contributions to technological and medical applications. 1. Introduction: The bacterial flagellar motor, TIRF microscopy and associated research Flagellar motors are machines used to drive many bacteria which have to swim in a solution like our bodies. This motor, usually studied in E. coli bacteria, is powered by a flux of H+ or Na+ ions across a cytoplasmic membrane driven by an electrochemical gradient (Sowa and Berry, 2008). The motor itself consists of two components, a rotor and a stator: the rotor spins relative to the cell and is attached by a helical filament known as a hook, whereas the stator is fixed to the cell wall (Francis et al 1994). A method commonly used to visualise the bacterial flagellar motor is Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, which is one of the most frequently employed methods in bio-optical research (Leake 2013, P87). TIRF microscopy uses an evanescent field to illuminate the area covered by the specimen in question, which is adjacent to a glass-water interface. Using organic dyes has made it possible to view other properties of bacteria using TIRF (Sako et al 2000). This method is useful in counting the molecular subunits of the bacterial flagellar motor. TIRF microscopy has been used to view single molecules within live bacteria. For viewing the bacterial flagellar motor of E. coli, scientists tagged motility protein B (MotB) cells with Green Fluorescence Protein (GFP) in order to detect them via TIRF. This highlighted the areas within the bacteria where the motor was situated. To visualise the bacteria in a single confined position, the cell was tethered to the slide for viewing on the microscope. This is shown in Fig. 1, where the fixed position of the flagellum limits the bacteria’s movement to rotation. Fig. 1 Tethered cell showing its exposure to the evanescent field used for TIRF (Leake 2006, P355) 2. Background, difficulties and discoveries from the research 2.1 The history behind counting molecules Though the basis of this experiment began in the 60s, initially using the measurement of the activity of single molecules (Rotman 1961), optical detection and spectroscopic methods are now used instead. The counting of complex molecules can now also be achieved, but this area of research also needs TIRF microscopy. TIRF was enhanced in 1984 by Daniel Axelrod after the publishing of a paper on its experimental methods (Axelrod 1984), and those methods remain largely unchanged today. Furthermore, GFP molecules have only been recently understood. Without this research and development in GFP, visuals using TIRF would not be possible (Tsien 1998). 2.2 The difficulties encountered and overcome in counting molecules An estimate of around twenty-two molecules are thought to be present in the flagellar motor, with roughly eleven stator units. The main issue with determining this result explicitly is that there are many MotB molecules not associated with the motor. These molecules cause a problem as they are free to diffuse within the motors of the cell membrane. The fluorescence intensity was estimated from the areas where it was clear that no such molecules would interfere with results. Additionally, an intense laser beam focus for TIRF was required to photobleach GFP molecules. Only an extremely small region of the bacteria was viewed to improve the ability to track a small number of molecules – a significant amount of noise remained in the system, however, meaning that it is not yet possible to count exactly how many molecules are in each motor. Fig. 2 showing bright field (top) and their corresponding TIRF images (bottom) (Leake 2006, P355). The bright areas represent the flagellar motor. Using TIRF, bright spots indicate the centre of the cell rotation of the image shown in Fig. 2. There was a high density of spots centred on the flagellar motor, due to the high density of GFP-MotB molecules around the motor. Short times (between 0-10 seconds) are used because TIRF illumination over the bright spots decreases over longer periods of time, which makes it difficult to detect regions of the flagellar motor. Care was taken to not cause damage to the GFP due to the excitation light on the surrounding water: this means that smaller time steps were required such that the GFP molecules emitted a constant amount of photons. 2.3 The effects FRAP and FLIP With the noise effects reduced, there was the opportunity for the GFP-MotB molecules to spread into the area which had been bleached beforehand. Focusing the laser beam onto the motor itself resulted in the effects of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) and fluorescence lost in photobleaching (FLIP). Observations of the molecular turnover in the cell found that over a period of five minutes, the intensity of the bright spots around the motor would decrease to nearly zero but then recover to half the initial intensity. This implied that binding and unbinding at the motor and bleaching occurred in the evanescent field (Leake et al 2006, P357), which means that the stator units in the motor only spend half a minute in each flagellar motor. This is demonstrated in Fig. 3, which illustrates the time elapsed after laser focused bleaching and how the intensity decreases but eventually recovers. Fig. 3. Shows the effects of FLIP and FRAP over the period of 5 minutes (Leake et al 2006, P357) 3. Benefits of the research and potential uses for the future An improved type of MotB was used in the research, which enhanced the way in which the molecules in the motor were counted. FLIP and FRAP indicate an alternative means for visualising the motor in motion, confirming that the stator units are dynamic instead of static (Sowa and Berry, 2008, P117). This is one of the first measurements of turnover in a molecular machine, establishing other possible characteristics which could be exploited to gain further understanding of the motor (Leake et al 2006, P357). Scientists are keen to understand more about how such motors work, so that developments in the delivery of medicine or for environmental purposes can be made. It may be possible to replicate the motor (Fukuda et al 2012). Delivery of medicine is one of the key goals: modelling the bacterial flagellar motor such that it could be used for targeted drug delivery would be revolutionary (Leake 2013, P259). Furthermore, through the development of nano-bots, this could be used to visualise diseased tissue or uncover parts of the human body. Summary This area of biophysics is relatively new: from the discoveries in the early 60s through to the 80s, there has not been a clear link between the two subjects. From the late 90s there was an opportunity to visualise biological material using physical optical devices. Over the past two decades, it has now reached to the point where it is possible to count single molecules to a close estimate. The use of GFP molecules combined with TIRF can enhance the visualisation of molecules in bacteria, and there are methods which can significantly improve the estimation of the number of molecules in the motor. This is still a difficult process due to the interference of other, unrelated molecules. FLIP and FRAP methods have proved that the stator is a dynamic rather than a static component of the motor. There are specific parts of this research which may be useful for future technological applications, for example: the delivery of medicine or the bio-sensing of diseased tissue. References Axelrod, D; Ann. Rev. Biophys. Bioeng.; 13; 1984; 247-68 Francis, N, R.; Sosinsky, G,E; Thomas, D; Derosier, D. J; Journal of Molecular Biology 235, 1994; 1261–1270. Fukuda, T; Kojima, M; Zhang, Z; Nakajima, M; Biomed Micro-device; 2012; 1027-32 Leake, M; Single Molecular Cellular Biophysics; 2013 Leake, M C; Chandler, J H; Wadhams, G H; Bai, F; Berry, R M; Armitage, J P; Nature 443; 2006; 355-358 Rotman, B; Biochemistry 47; 1961; 1981-91 Sako, Y; Minoghchi, S; Yanagida, T; Nature Cell Biol. 2; 2000; 1929-1932 Sowa, Y; Berry, R, M; Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics 41, 2008, 103-132 Tsien, R.Y; Annu. Rev. Biochem 67; 1998; 509–44

Project Management Essay -- Careers Employment Essays

Project Management Project Management is quickly becoming a field of study and importance in the business world. A search on the Internet of the title â€Å"Project Management† yields hundreds or results including forums, training manuals and job openings for related positions. Project Management is a broad term referencing the necessary steps taken by management to ensure a product is feasible before and during implementation. According to Project Management Learning Objectives, the steps to achieve success in this area include: testing and measuring products, evaluating and managing the product cycle, comparing costs and benefits, measuring product worth, economic analysis, product analysis, teambuilding and leadership, and budgeting and cost control (Project Management Outline). Project Managers oversee many different areas of the business and are responsible for project success. Importance of Project Management Since the concept of Project Management is broad, many different aspects of a business rely on successful Project Management. â€Å"Projects† can include product line development, attaining company goals, boosting employee morale, and product costing, to name a few. This area of business is important because it determines every minute detail required to get the product produced and to the consumer. There are several steps required to assure project success. These steps are briefly outlined in the following paragraphs. Step 1: Determine project goals. It is important to define what the project is, as well as what the expected inputs and outputs are. According to Project Management Tutorial Online, in order for project goals to be accomplished, this must be a team oriented decision. â€Å"Give everyone the opp... ...p together to create a quality product. However, if implemented incorrectly, project management can upset employees, break team bonds and result in a poor product, if any. Project Management can be used in all different businesses, it is a way to bring together employees to work towards the same goal. It has been proven that if employees are involved in the project decision making they feel confident and excited about the project results. Thus, they are more willing to dedicate quality time and effort into the process. The size of the project is not an issue, the concepts in project management should be used every time there is a task that needs to be completed by the help of a few employees. Through the research or project management it can be learned that you can have a bad project, but with the proper implementation, that bad project can come out a success.

Essay --

1. Descartes takes upon the task of finding what beliefs he holds are certain and in order to do this he partakes in the method of doubt. This is the method of doubt: â€Å"reject every belief which you can find reason to doubt† (Ginsborg Lecture 1/19). However, he finds the task of attacking every single belief that he holds to be too difficult, so he looks at the foundations for his beliefs. This will cause the beliefs built upon those foundations to also fall apart (AT 19). Throughout the first meditation Descartes goes through deeper stages of doubt, which leads him lastly to his supposition of the evil genius. The first foundation that Descartes breaks down is the belief of what his senses tell him about â€Å"very small and distant things† (AT 19). He notices how his senses have deceived him about these things and, therefore, attacks the beliefs he has about â€Å"very small and distant things†. Because the foundation of beliefs concerning â€Å"very small and distant things† is flawed, all the beliefs that were implicated from it can no longer be believed. Upon breaking down this first foundation, Descartes finds that he can still come to believe certain things that his senses tell him, like sitting next to a fire and holding a paper (AT 19). Therefore, Descartes considers that he may be dreaming, which makes these beliefs doubtful. Descartes argues that it is possible that he may be asleep and dreaming because there have been times in which he dreamt of mundane things such as sitting next to a fire. He cannot distinguish being awake and asleep. Dreaming has deceived him – it has made him think that he has been doing something other than actually sleeping (AT 29). Due to dream skepticism, the foundation of beliefs gained through his s... ...ed into. In essence, Descartes is a programmed computer that is being controlled, and seemingly has free will over his thoughts, but really does not. His future thoughts have already been assigned and his past and current thoughts were assigned. This idea of thoughts being instilled within him also indicates a second flaw in Descartes argument, in that he assumes he has free will in his thinking. The God in this scenario instills every aspect of thinking, such as to â€Å"doubt, understand, affirm...†, and so forth within Descartes. He cannot be certain that he has any control over the thoughts within his mind because he may not actually even have the ability to think. Thinking is not going on, but thoughts are inputted. Thus, having argued that he cannot assume that his thoughts belong to him and that he has free will, Descartes cannot be certain of his own existence.

Why Do Convenient Stores Have Locks On Their Doors If They Are Always :: essays research papers

Why Do Convenient Stores Have Locks On Their Doors If They Are Always Open? At 1:30 in the morning you are driving down Walton Road when you pass the 7-11. You decide to stop in and treat yourself to a nice big slurpee. As you pull in the parking lot you notice that the sign says, "We're open 24 hr's, 7 days a week, 365 days a year." However, when you reach the door you notice that they have locks on the doors and you think to yourself, why do convenient stores have locks on their doors if they're going to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year? If they're never going to close then they have no need for locks on the doors. This will only cause an inconvenience for employees and customers. The idea of adding locks onto the doors is only going to cost the store more money. Also, it would give the managers one extra key on their already big key chain that they really have no use for. Since they are open every second of the year, they never need to lock the doors between shifts. When one person's shift is over then the next person will come in and take over. It's not like most stores where at night when the store closes they lock the doors and go home. Then, in the morning whoever is going to be opening comes in and unlocks the store and gets it ready for the first customers of the day. This situation would never happen at a store that is open all the time because there always has to be someone working. On a rare occasion, the store might need to the lock the doors if someone outside is causing trouble. However, if they locked the doors and wouldn't let any customers in they would be lying saying that they're open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Doing this would cause the store to lose money because no one could then get into the store. By adding locks onto the doors would also make people think that sometimes they do close, like on holidays. On almost all national holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, stores will be closed to allow their valued employees time off to spend with family. If this was the case then some people might avoid shopping there on holidays in fear that when they get there they will be closed. Then they would have to drive all the way to another store

“Our Day out” by Willie Russell Essay

Our Day out by Willie Russell is an energetic and humorous play, about a school trip to Conwy castle. The ‘progress class’, a class for illiterate children, are on a trip to Wales where the liberal Mrs Kay and the strict Mr Briggs have completely different ideas about the day should be organised. Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs have two distinct personalities that clash frequently throughout the play and Willie Russell presents both in an interesting and comical way in his drama. Mrs Kay is a benevolent and fun teacher who treats the children as if they were her own. ‘She always reminds me of a mother hen rather than a teacher’. Mr Briggs says this and it sums up exactly what Mrs Kay is like and her attitude to the children. Her aim on the school trip is for everyone to have fun with the only rule being ‘†¦think of yourselves but also think of others’. She genuinely cares for the children and wants them to have an enjoyable day out to assuage the social injustice that they find themselves up against. Mr Briggs’ ideology of the children is contrary to Mrs Kay’s. Mr Briggs is a strict, intolerant and old-fashioned teacher who is has firm standards and is harsh towards the students. ‘Stop! Slater, walk†¦walk! You, boy†¦come here. Now stop. All of you†¦stop!’ Mr Briggs is shouting as the children get off the coach but Mrs Kay casually walks past and pours out some coffee. At the zoo, Mr Briggs lightens up a little and we get to see more of the soft and loving side that he conceals in favour of the harsh and angry one. He is enjoying himself when he explains about all of the different animal types to the children, and in the cafà © with Mrs Kay, he even offers to do a small presentation at school with some slides. ‘I didn’t think the kids who came to you would be too interested in animals’. He is pleasantly surprised with the interest of the children in a topic that he holds close to this heart. However, all the reader’s hopes of Mr Briggs turning ‘nice’ are dashed when the children attempt to steal the animals and he returns with vengeance back to the old Mr Briggs, and, with a ‘face of thunder’, shouts at the children  again. Mrs Kay understands that a lot of the children come from a deprived background and sympathises with their predicament. She shows this when she chooses to go on the side of the Progress Class when they attempt to steal some animals from the zoo. ‘Well I’d suggest that if you want the chaos to stop then you should stop seeing it as chaos†¦It’s too late for them. Most of them were rejects the day they were born†¦can’t we try and give them a good day out†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ She realises that it was probably the closest that they would ever get to an animal and many were just over-excited at the prospect of having something that they would never have. Mr Briggs’ encounter with Carol Chandler is a defining moment of the play because when Carol is on the top of the cliff we can see that Mr Briggs does not know what it is like to be Carol and children like her in that situation. He is taken aback at the fact that Carol talks back at him which he is not use to. Carol doesn’t want to go back to school, she dreams of living in a ‘nice place’ and has really enjoyed the outing. Briggs thinks she is just being stubborn but what has Carol got to go back to in Liverpool? Briggs begins to see that she is a poor, innocent girl whom no one loves. After the incident with Carol, Mr Briggs changes, he sees the world from her perspective. He becomes more relaxed, insists on a visit to the fair and lets the children treat him like they do Mrs Kay. At the fair he starts to have fun with the children and most are astounded at his attitude change – ‘I didn’t know you was like that, sir. Y’ know, all right for a laugh an’ that’. However, as the coach nears Liverpool, reality returns, and Mr Briggs purposely destroys the photo film, which held evidence of his changed relationship with the Progress Class. It is plainly evident in the play, that Mr Briggs is the better teacher academically than Mrs Kay. The headmaster asked Mr Briggs to go along on the school trip ‘keep things in some sort of order’ and the headmaster describes Mrs Kay’s attitude to education as ‘one long game’. This epitomises Mrs Kay’s attitude to teaching as something that should be fun, entertaining and not too serious. Mrs Kay may be an incompetent teacher, but the question that needs to be asked is: Can the Progress Class be educated? Mrs Kay doesn’t seem to think so and is more interested in letting them have an enjoyable childhood than in expanding their knowledge. ‘Teach them? Teach them what? You’ll never teach them because nobody knows what to do with them†¦they haven’t got anything to aim for†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ I think Willie Russell intends us to sympathise with Mr Briggs and with the children in the Progress Class, especially Carol Chandler. The children are from poor background and have no hope for the future. Carol Chandler’s school uniform ‘doubles as a street outfit and her Sunday best’. This shows just how poor the children are – their best clothes are their school uniform. Carol, who dreams of being in a ‘nice place’, is probably the child worst affected because she has no one to love and no one to love her. She comes from a rough neighbourhood because she says – ‘ That’s why we never have nothing nice round our way – ‘cos we’d just smash it up’. She took the guinea pig and was affectionate towards it because it was something that was her own and something that she could love. Also, the other children seem to ostracise her and the only person she seems to have a proper conversation with is Mrs Kay. Mr Briggs is an intelligent man trying to educate puerile students. All throughout the play he means well to the children and it is a real stab-in-the heart when Carol says ‘ I know you hate me. I’ve seen you goin’ home in your car, passin’ us on the street. And the way y’ look at us. You hate all the kids!’ When he tells off kids, they take it but after they just ignore him and carry on as normal. He is also the only teacher who doesn’t realise (until after the Carol Chandler incident) that the Progress Class are incapable of being educated. Our Day Out by Willie Russell is a funny and light-hearted play but with lots of hidden messages. Wille Russell presents the characteristics of Mr Briggs and Mrs Kay very interestingly and with good humour. We are left with a feeling of ambivalence at the end when Mr Briggs destroys the camera film.  Has he changed for good or was it just a one off?

Benefits of Using Laser Communication Technology Essay

Laser communication, often referred to as free-space optics (FSO) or free-space laser (FSL) communication, is similar to fiber optic cable in terms of carrier wavelength and bandwidth capability, but data are transmitted directly through the atmosphere via laser beams over paths from a few meters to 4 km or longer. FSL uses lasers in the near-infrared spectrum, typically at wavelengths of 850 or 1550 nm. Given these wavelengths, atmospheric attenuation must be considered, and an adequate margin of optical power (dB) must exist to support high system availability (the percentage of time that an FSL link is in operation, typically 99.9%). A visual range of 100 m can attenuate a laser beam at a rate of nearly 130 dB km−1. For short links (< 1200 m), fog and low clouds are the primary concerns. For longer links, scintillation, heavy rain, and snow frequently become issues. To address these issues, long-term climate data are analyzed to determine the frequency of occurrence of low visibilities and low-cloud ceilings. To estimate availability at a site of interest, adjustments to airport climate data are made to accommodate differences in altitude, geography, and the effects of the urban heat island. In sum, communication via FSL is a feasible alternative to fiber optic cable when atmospheric conditions are considered and properly analyzed. Polarization shift keying (PolSK) is a new modulation technique, it uses the state of polarization of an electromagnetic wave carrier as the information bearing parameter. This paper describes a modulation/demodulation method based on PolSK, and a high-speed laser communication system, and verifies its feasibility through theoretical analysis and computer simulation. Studies have shown that the based on the parameters of laser polarization modulation and demodulation techniques have unique advantages, such as in anti-atmospheric interference, higher data rate and lower bit error rate, greatly improving the reliability of communication. In addition to polymorphism modulation can be achieved by this modulation method, which has a data capacity. In the future, the PolSK modulation and differential demodulation method has a broad space for development and application prospects in the space laser communications. Research Background The technology of laser communication was concerned by great nation in the world, because of its advantage of good security, building network conveniently, large communication capacity, smallness and portable, low power consumption and the other advantages. With the achievement of micro-arc order dynamic tracking technology, in order to develop its potentials and advantages further, high-rate and long distance became the new directions of the development of the laser communication. The technology of laser communication combined some more mature technologies of high speed optical fiber communication technology, such as front optical amplification, wavelength division multiplexing, diversity reception and the all-optical network technology, which also brought new problems into the air light coupled into optical fiber. Because of the effects of the deviation of the alignment, vibration and atmosphere, it was difficult to achieve high efficiency of air light coupled into optical fiber for tiny diameter of core of the fiber. Thus, big diameter of core of the fiber should be chosen. As the limit of the devices, the detective area of the detector of the high speed optoelectronic detector was difficult to achieve above 100ÃŽ ¼m. Therefore, it’s necessary to optimize the diameter of fiber core and the detective area. At the same time, in order to lighten and lessen the optical platform and void some practical problems such as the high frequency interference and the moment of the wire-wound, it’s necessary to estimate and solve the loss of optical docking to optimize the high efficiency and speed received system of the atmospheric laser communication. In the paper, the high-efficiency and high-speed receiver technology of atmospheric laser communication was analyzed, which was based on ideal and atmospheric condition. For which, the received system of the atmospheric laser communication and its main parameters were discussed and the effects of the atmospheric on the laser communication with high efficiency and velocity were analyzed. Besides, the factors were also discussed, which affected the space light coupling into the fiber and fiber docking coupling and the corresponding simulation results were given. The method was proposed, which was used to solve the problems of the atmospheric laser communication, and the results of the indoor fiber docking coupling were analyzed so that it was feasible and efficient. The experiment of the maximum coupling efficiency about the atmosphere was carried out and the effects of the atmospheric on the experimental results were discussed. Modern lasers represent a massive improvement over lasers of the past, and the technology is advancing just as quickly now as it has been for the past decade. Optical fiber has demonstrated the ability to move hundreds of terabits of information per second. In addition, lasers are able to see through dense foliage, and can allow for space communication from distances measured in millions of miles. The capabilities of modern lasers almost are like science-fiction stories, and the technology involved is still improving Statement of the Problem This paper aims to identify the benefits of laser communication technology. The objective of these communication projects is to service personal communication users almost everywhere on Earth. The inter-satellite links in those projects use microwave radiation as the carrier. Free-space optical communication between satellites networked together can make possible high-speed communication between different places on Earth. Some advantages of an optical communication system over a microwave communication system in free space are: (1) smaller size and weight, (2) less transmitter power, (3) larger bandwidth, and (4) higher immunity to interference. The pointing from one satellite to another is a complicated problem due to the large distance between the satellite, the narrow beam divergence angle, and vibration of the pointing system. Such vibration of the transmitted beam in the receiver plane decreases the average received signal, which increases the bit error rate. We review: (1) the present status of satellite networks, (2) developing efforts of optical satellite communication around the world, (3) performance results of vibration effects on different kinds of optical communication satellite networks, and (4) seven approaches to overcome the problems caused by transmitter pointing vibration Methodology This paper aims to investigate the design and the benefits of using laser communication technology. Operation from a low earth orbit (LEO) platform (e.g., the International Space Station) would allow transmission of single photons and pairs of entangled photons to ground stations and hence permit quantum communication applications such as quantum cryptography on a global scale. Integration of a source generating entangled photon pairs and single-photon detection into existing optical terminal designs is feasible. Even more, major subunits of the classical terminals such as those for pointing, acquisition, and tracking as well as those providing the required electronic, thermal, and structural backbone can be adapted so as to meet the quantum communication terminal needs. Results and Discussion Common uses for lasers in sensing include determining precise location information that radar and traditional sighting systems for kinetic weapons like rifles and missiles cannot provide. â€Å"When using lasers with a weapon system they’re a complement to kinetic systems,† explains Michael Rinn, vice president of the Boeing Co. Directed Energy Systems segment in Albuquerque, N.M. Lasers â€Å"offer an advantage of cost-per-shot, precision ranging, and precision pointing,† Rinn continues. â€Å"From three, four, or five kilometers away a laser can focus on a moving target precisely. Radar and gun systems are nowhere near the kinds of ranges we’re demonstrating.† Of course, lasers aren’t a replacement for any system, but they serve to compliment systems by providing additional information. Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) is one of the primary ways lasers can sense objects and movement. LIDAR can create images by bouncing lasers off a targe t. Narrow-beam lasers enable LIDAR to detect images where other sensors could not, such as finding objects in heavy foliage or finding exact distances, heights, chemical compounds, and atmospheric composition. LIDAR not only provides this information, but also can render still images in three dimensions. Given sufficient processing power, lasers also can render moving images that look like videos. Scientists have used LIDAR to guide unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including an AH-6 unmanned Little Bird light helicopter gunship, through areas with obstacles. LIDAR provides the precision necessary for autonomous piloting, a hot commodity at a time when UAVs require at least one operator. The AH-6 is a military version of the MD 500 light helicopter. As with any advancing technology — especially one that involves as much computation as laser technology does — the size of laser systems has shrunk to sizes that were unimaginable when they were first introduced. â€Å"We’re seeing leaps and bounds in the technology,† says Boeing’s Rinn. â€Å"Sizes have gone down from racks to credit-card size; you’re seeing a lot of transformation in the industry.† Early-model laser systems were big, awkward, and used too much power to make them practical for vehicles. Today’s lasers, however, can fit in small boxes and can be parts of UAV payloads, fixed-site perimeter-security systems, helicopters, and ground vehicles. Laser limitations Laser sensing does have a weakness, when compared to other kinds of sensors. â€Å"Heavy rain, really bad weather conditions, and sandstorms, cause problems for lasers,† explains Boeing’s Rinn. Adverse weather conditions prevent laser light from reaching its target. Even heat waves can distort the laser beam and lead to inaccurate or lost data. Fortunately, there is a way around atmospheric issues with lasers. The answer to this problem is an atmospheric-compensation sensor that uses a low-power beam before correcting itself. The now-discontinued Airborne Laser (ABL) program, for example, sent out a low-power laser before firing its powerful chemical laser. The low-power laser measured atmospheric distortion between the aircraft and its target, and used that information to calibrate the laser weapon to put the most energy possible on target. Atmospheric compensation enables the use of lasers even in harsh environments that would render uncorrected laser sensors useless. Atmospheric compensation does not allow lasers to function in particularly bad conditions, however. Atmospheric distortion happens when air currents or pollution bends light, and is the phenomenon that makes the stars at night appear to twinkle . Lasers for communications Fiber-optic cable has seen huge improvements in the past decade. With potential data rates that reach data rates of terabits per second, lasers can move vast quantities of data more securely than other forms of communications. Lasers are impervious to electromagnetic interference (EMI), do not emit stray signals like RF energy does, and fiber lasers are substantially lighter than copper cable. Fiber-optic cable â€Å"Is lighter, faster, smaller has no EMI and doesn’t cause sparks,† explains John Lee, vice president of marketing at optical fiber specialist Timbercon Inc. in Lake Oswego, Ore. â€Å"War fighters today have a huge appetite for data, if we don’t have the type of bandwidth fiber provides we won’t be giving our war fighters everything we can.† Lasers also have been used in communications without optical fiber. â€Å"Laser communication is a very specific application — satellite-to-satellite, terrestrial-to-satellite, terrestrial-to -airplane — are very high bandwidth applications that lasers can do.† Boeing’s Rinn says. Lasers can be used for communication without any cables to communicate from huge distances, particularly in space. This practice, called free-space optical communications, uses laser beams that travel through the air, or through outer space, instead through optical fiber, and is generating substantial industry excitement for its potential in broadband data communications. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., in fact, has created its own free-space optical communications research group. More information on the NASA group is online at Free-space optical communications send lasers operating at wavelengths not visible to the human eye to receivers for high-bandwidth line-of-sight communications. The benefit of free-space optical communication over radio signals is clear. Free-space optical communication does not experience interference from radio waves and is nearly impossible for an enemy to intercept or disrupt. Free-space optical communication is particularly applicable to inter-satellite communications because it is relatively interference-free, offers better connections than RF signals, and travels for longer ranges. Lasers provide high-bandwidth communications links between satellites, deep-space probes, and orbiting telescopes using lasers, lenses, and mirrors, these connections allow for fast communication with receivers and transmitters. Some space-based free-space optical communications links operate reliably millions of miles apart. Inter-satellite communications links can send and receive data that are exponentially larger than RF signals can provide, while using less power. NASA’s own project, the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, seeks to prove the long-term viability of free-space optical communication and increase current inter-satellite data rates by as much as a hundred times greater than current RF communication allows. The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration will be holding preliminary design review in 2013, with ground testing starting in 2014. The project will then fly as a commercial satellite payload in 2016. Future laser technology Laser technology has yet to mature, and many enhancements are left to be made. Everything lasers can do currently is still improving at a rapid rate and new techniques to improve lasers are still in the works. One such new technique is beam combining, which blends several laser streams into one high-power beam. â€Å"There are a lot of people chasing combining laser beams,† says Boeing’s Rinn. â€Å"There’s a lot of research and technology growth going on there.† Researchers are taking three approaches to combine laser beams: spectral beam combining, coherent beam combining and polarization beam combining. Each approach has its own uses, benefits, and downsides. The goal of beam combining is to increase laser power and brightness to enable long-distance communications and laser weapons. Beam combining techniques Polarization beam combining blends two linearly polarized laser beams — one vertically polarized and the other horizontally polarized. These beams move to a thin-film polarizer so that one is reflected and the other transmitted, forcing both beams to propagate in the same direction. This creates an unpolarized beam with almost the same optical power as the two input beams combined, and with the same beam quality. Brightness similarly increases. Polarized beam combining does not scale power, however, because the unpolarized output cannot go through the same process. â€Å"It is expected that beam-combined laser systems will in the near future reach output power levels of tens to hundreds of kilowatts,† Paschotta says. â€Å"Possible applications of such systems are in the military sector in the context of anti-missile and other directed energy laser weapons. There are also possibilities for long-distance free-space optical communication and laser-based manufacturing.â⠂¬  Conclusion In the free-space laser communication there is sometimes a strong need for reduction of the diffraction spot size in the far field. In this paper, instead of the usage of the larger size aperture lens in the free-space laser communication system, we introduce diffractive superresolution technology to design and fabricate a cheap pure-phase plate for realizing the smaller spot size than the usual Airy spot size, which can decrease the weight and size of the emitting lens. We have calculated 2, 3, 4, 5 circulation zones for optimizing the highest energy compression (Strehl ratio) with the constraint of the First zero ratio value G=0.8. Numerical results show that the 2- or 3-circular zone pure-phase plate can yield the highest Strehl ratio (S≈0.59) with the constraint of G=0.8, but the 4, 5 circular zone binary phase (0,Ï€) plates are calculated to yield the result ofS≈0.57 with G=0.8. We have fabricated 2- and 3-circular zone binary phase plate with binary optics technology. Finally, we have established an experimental system for simulation of the free-space laser communication to verify the advantage of the superresolution phase plate. Detailed experiments are presented. Factories use sensors to guarantee product quality. The advent of cell phones and constant communications with satellites has raised demands for better communications. The transoceanic fiber cables that sit at the bottom of the ocean, coupled with data demands that almost double yearly thanks to the explosion of streaming video has also led to more and more research being performed on optimizing optical communications and optics in general. Acknowledgement Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my Teacher Madam Marlita delos Santos for the continuous support of my study, for his patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time.I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my study. Besides my Teacher, I would like to thank the rest of my teachers in Lope de Vega National High School for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions. My sincere thanks also goes to my parent for their support and undying love to me so I can finish the secondary learning and I may able to achieve my dreams and ambitions. I thank my fellow Classmates, school mates, and friends for the stimulating discussions, for the sleepless nights we were working together before deadlines, and for all the fun we have had in the last four years. Last but not the least; I would like to thank God for his Guidance and Love for me and the World. The Writer Bibliography 1. Journal of Optical Networking, Vol. 4, Issue 9, pp. 549-560 (2005) 2. http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/JON.4.00 3. http://www.opticsinfobase.org/jocn/abstract.cfm?URI=jon-4-9-5490549 4. http://lasers.jpl.nasa.gov. 5. M. Pfennigbauer, M. Aspelmeyer, W. Leeb, G. Baister, T. Dreischer, T. Jennewein, G. Neckamm, J. Perdigues, H. Weinfurter, and A. Zeilinger, â€Å"Satellite-based quantum communication terminal employing state-of-the-art technology,† J. Opt. Netw. 4, 549-560 (2005)