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I would like to acknowledge my parents, Erich and Nancy, for raising me to value education and for supporting me in all my interests. I thank them for attending so many of my baseball games when I was growing up, for making me practice the piano when I wanted to do anything else, for encouraging me and enforcing me in school, and for making family fieldtrips an important part of my childhood. And mostly, I thank you for caring and praying for me, despite my success and/or failure. To Nancy and Erich do I dedicate this dissertation. I thank my thesis advisor, Professor H. Eugene Stanley, for accepting me into his scientific family, for taking my ideas seriously, for unwavering financial support and perpetual encouragement, and for patiently showing me how to present scientific research in such calculated and efficient language. I will look fondly back on the years of knocking on your office door, and waiting in anticipation to enter and “get to work. ” Your work ethic and passion for pursuing scientific beauty has infected countless collaborators and former students, and I am both proud and humbled to have worked with you. I am also grateful for your kindness, and the warmth wit