ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis committee, Tom Moher, Bob Grossman, and Charles Tier, for their support in this venture. I would especially like to thank Tom Moher for his unwavering support and belief in this project, despite its untraditional approach, in a period of his life in which great personal tragedy occurred.

I would also like to thank JoAnne Miller, Kris Cohen, and Veenu Aulakh for their inspiration and editorial control, and Richard Miller for invaluable technical assistance.

Dave Thau, bianca, and the biancanauts should also be acknowledged as they received a noticeable lack of support from me in the last few weeks of writing this.

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