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\indent Above all, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my advisor Dr. Jennifer L. Welch for her guidance and support during my graduate studies.  Whenever I reached a research roadblock, she has guided me towards the right path and encouraged me to move forward to reach my goal.  I have the greatest respect for her personality and work ethics.

I would also like to thank my committee members Drs. Riccardo Bettati, Andrew Jiang, and Alex Sprintson for their support in improving the quality of my research.

During my studies at Texas A\&M, I had the privilege to work with wonderful research group members in the Distributed Computing group, Parasol Laboratory: Dr. Hyunyoung Lee, Dr. Srikanth Sastry, Dr. Saira Viqar, Gautam Roy, Erica Wang, Edward Talmage, Mira Radeva, Whitney Maguffee, Dr. Josef Widder, and Dr. Peter Robinson.  They were generous enough to have lengthy discussions with me even when I raised a tedious topic. They are more than my colleagues; they are my friends.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, my wife Ji Yun, and my son Won Il for their support, patience and love.


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