Applied Optics, the world's leading optical technology journal, is published in three monthly divisions. It reports the industry's most important experimental and applied research breakthroughs, from electro-optics and lasers, optical engineering, and quantum electronics, to optical probing and remote sensing from the extreme ultraviolet to the far infrared . . . plus patents. The Optical Technology and Biomedical Optics division of Applied Optics publishes papers pertaining to optical testing and instrumentation (including interferometry, metrology, moire techniques, speckle, and diffraction); lens design; x-ray optics; micro-optics; gradient-index optics; radiometry and detectors; fiber optic sensors; thin films; optical materials (excluding lasing and nonlinear materials that belong to the Lasers Photonics, and Environmental Optics division); medical optics (including tissue optics and optical medical instruments); and applied vision. Biomedical Optics is an area that is receiving new emphasis in this journal, and its scope is widening rapidly. The Information Processing division publishes papers in the broad areas of optical computing and Information processing. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, image-detection devices and systems; Fourier optics, holography; optical image processing, restoration, enhancement, and quality measurement; pattern recognition; images understanding; machine vision; statistical optics and speckle; optical neural networks; optical data recording and storage; optical signal processing; photonic networks; optical interconnection systems, packaging, and subsystems; and optical materials, devices, algorithms, and architectures relevant to these technologies. The Lasers, Photonics, and Environmental Optics division publishes papers relating to lasers and laser systems, optoelectronic and photonic components and systems, and environmental optics. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, lasers, including laser materials and design; nonlinear optics and wavelength conversion; optical and infrared spectroscopy; optoelectronics; integrated optics; fiber-optic technology; laser instrumentation, measurements, and metrology; laser materials processing; lasers in medicine; atmospheric optics and propagation; lidar and remote sensing; ocean topics and propagation; and atmospheric scattering and meteorological optics.