\chapter*{Acknowledgements}
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First of all I would like to thank my mentor David Hales. Dave, all the virtues of this
work are due to you. Your influence, even when I was rebeling against it,
can be discerned throughout this thesis. I cannot pay a greater tribute to you than by admitting that from my two
favorite chapters in this thesis, one was written (in my mind) against you (Chapter 6), while
the other was written for you (Chapter 7). During the good times and the bad,
whether we were engaging in mutual backslapping or mutual insults, I was always struck by your generosity
and your sincere passion for helping others. You truly are a special person.

Henk, I want to thank you for your kindness and your flexibility. You have always supported me
and I would not have had such an easy time had it not been for your comforting shadow.
I am also very grateful that despite being so experienced, you never tried to impose your views upon
me. You never pressurized me to change my working style to conform to your standards, and you always encouraged
me when I came up with my ideas. Thank you also for taking care of the so many administrative issue that kept creeping up
over the years.

Tamas, thank you so much for supporting me through all my low phases and letting me
support you through yours. It has been quite a journey. I believe that despite all the
difficulties, we managed to make a very good time of it. You are one of the most honest and decent
people I have met and you have inspired me to live up to your high standards. On the technical side,
you are modest to a fault. All the best!


Michel, thank you so much for everything.
You think and feel so deeply about things, and that inspires others around you to be
positive and wholesome. You are a treasure to your friends, gifted though not very ambitious,
wise but not clever, careful yet not conservative. Spiritually, I always felt that you were \emph{Pierre} to
my \emph{Andrei}, and we complemented each other very well. I also want to thank Apple for being a 
very dear friend for Sidra. And of course love to Ananda. 

Johan, it takes a courageous man to learn to let go. And you have shown
much courage in doing so. Towards the end of my PhD, I would not have been able to do the research
I did, had it not been for more freedom from your end. Also, credit is due to you for assembling such a nice group
of people on the 9th floor, a group which could rival many a famous research group. I hope you maintain your 
position and keep bringing in grants, and wonderful people, to our floor. 

Ali, you are a special friend. You are the most well-informed friend that I have, and it is always
nice to learn new stuff from you. I wish you all the best for your thesis. 

Arno, I will never forget your kind gestures, both in times of grief and joy. Thank you!

Alexandru and Ana, thank you for making the initial days nice and homely. 

Lucia, thank you for your your encouragement and for being a comrade-in-arms. I wish you and Jelle
all the best for the future. Also, I wish you all the best for your thesis defense.

Boxun, thank you for keeping my connection to China alive and for sharing, among other things, videos of cartoons that 
we grew up watching. Thanks also for all the nice badges

Mihai, thank you for always being very kind to me and forgiving my follies. All the best
in designing the new Internet!

Nitin, conversing with you was always a joy. World cup 2011 would not have been so enjoyable
had it not been for the frenzied gtalk messages that we kept exchanging, sometimes ball-to-ball. 
I wish you all the best for your future. 

Adele, thank you for being such a nice colleague and research partner. Working with you has been 
a joy. Hope to see you as a professor in Beijing or Tsinghua University some day soon!

Rahim, thank you for the nice talks, especially in the gym, and good luck for your PhD and your life.

Neils, you are the first student that became a colleague, a nice trend that hopefully continues. 

Dimitra, I hope everything goes well with you and you get published in a physics journal. 

Boudewjin, thank you for being patient with us non-programmers and for always being very sharp and 
thorough. 

I want to thank my parents in law, Faiz Shaikh and Nusrat Bano, for being very kind to me. Thank you
for coming all the way to Delft for my defense and for the little Myna's arrival. I hope to be a better
son-in-law in the future. 

I want to thank my parents Ahfaz-ur-Rahman and Mahnaz Rahman, for their inimitable love. If I am able
to care for Myna half as much as you have cared for me, then I would have done a great job. Thank you
for all the big things and for all the little things. Thank you for taking care of us through thick and thin.
The training that you gave me is also evident in this technical thesis. 

I want to thank Sidra for a being a supportive and loving partner. I am especially grateful for your patience, especially
when I was busy with paper deadlines. I hope to be a more caring husband from now on.

Last but not the least, I dedicate this thesis to Myna, who would probably be around a fortnight old at the time of my PhD defense. 
A couplet for you in Urdu:

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%bismi al-ll_ahi al-rra.hm_ani al-rra.hImi
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