ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge my appreciation to those who have played an important role in the successful completion of my thesis. I express my gratitude to my advisor Dr. Panayiotis Shiakolas for all of his help and support, and for providing me with an interesting research topic. I enjoyed working on a project where I was able to apply my knowledge to an application that has the ability to make an impact on quality of life and benefit society. I also wish to express gratitude my committee members Drs. Jian Yang and Pranesh Aswath and the cardiologists, Drs. Emmanouil Brilakis and Subhash Banerjee of UTSW, for their suggestions and support during the project. Part of this work was performed under a grant from the UTA/UTSW Collaborative Research Program whose financial support for the initial phase of this research is acknowledged. I thank my fellow students Richard Tran, Tré Welch, Mohsin Rizwan, and Nikhil Kavadia for their assistance during this project. My deepest gratitude goes to my family for their love and support in all of my academic endeavors