Acknowledgements

It is with great sense of satisfaction with which I am presenting this thesis. While it has taken some time for the completion of the thesis, I have learned a great deal on the way. I would like to thank everyone who made this possible. I would like express my deep sense of gratitude to my research supervisor Prof. Matthew Jacob T for his excellent guidance and encouragement. He has been a constant source of inspiration through out my research with his thought provoking questions. He has been patient with me and have always given a helping hand during times of need. He has been more of a guru and it has been a great pleasure to interact with him. I would like to thank my research supervisor Prof. R. Govindarajan. He has provided technical inputs on various research issues. He has helped me to overcome various difficulties during my research. I would like Prof. Ravi of CAOS Department for having spent his valuable time and ex-plained the details of CAM code (atmospheric application) and its communication problems, which i had no familiarity with. I thank Prof. Jayant Haritsa and Prof. Sathish Vadhiyar for having provided insightfu