Further, I would like to thank my research collaborators Jean-Christophe Petkovich and Dr. Jianmei Guo for their engineering and scientific knowledge, suggestions, and help in this project.I would also like to thank Professor Derek Rayside, Professor Grant Weddell, Professor Jörg Andreas Kienzle, and Professor Peter van Beek for being my examining committee, for their reviews, feedback, and questions that helped me to expand and improve my work.I would like to thank our Graduate Coordinator Paula Roser, for her patience, help, and constant willingness to help me in any situation.I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my parents, my wife Alexandra, my sister Anna, and my best friend Eldar Khalilov. Thank you all for your unconditional support, patience, and advice through all these years. Without you this thesis would not be possible.Finally, I would like to thank my friends from University of Waterloo who always supported me and made my studies much more joyful:
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