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I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr Timothy Kurzweg, for his patience, encouragement and constant support throughout my education at Drexel. I am grateful for the technical and financial support, great opportunity, and unique experience of working with him. I appreciate his vast knowledge and skill in many areas and his assistance in writing reports (i.e. journal publications, peer reviewed conference publications and this thesis). I would like to thank my co-advisors, Dr. Allon Guez, and Dr. Gary Friedman for the many fruitful discussions and the assistance they provided at all levels of the research project. Without them, this research would not have been possible. Also I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Kapil Dandekar and Dr. Adam Fontecchio for agreeing to serve on the thesis committee on very short notice. Specia