An Internet-based electronic facsimile document transmission and reception system accommodates conventional facsimile machines and uses store and forwarding rather than real-time facsimile transmission to avoid keeping the originating fax machine from being unnecessarily occupied due to delays associated with the Internet. A shear plate overlying the pipette tip defines an aperture having a dimension equal to the exterior perimeter of the membrane filter. At least one of the positive lens unit Lp and the negative lens unit Ln includes two or less lenses which are moved during focusing, and a focal length Fp of the positive lens unit Lp and a focal length Fn of the negative lens unit Ln are appropriately set based on predetermined mathematical conditions. A flat portion near the second wave includes a first end and a second end. A standard fiber to compensating fiber length ratio in the range of 1:1 to 3:1 is shown to give optimum link performance with respect to limiting non-linear dispersion effects. The controller is coupled to the control regions and controls which of the emitting areas is output from respective ones of the interaction devices based on one or more modes of operation of the user control interface.