First, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Prof. Gerard T. Schuster for his constant guidance throughout my PhD study at kaust. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Shuyu Sun and Dr. Ying Wu for their valuable time, patience and support.
I am indebted to Prof. Paul L. Stoffa (my co-advisor) from the ut at Austin, and Dr. Reynam C. Pestana from the Federal University of Bahia, they have been wonderful mentors and teachers to me. I benefited significantly from the ut-kaust aea project in collaboration with them.
I thank the kaust Supercomputing Laboratory (http://ksl.kaust.edu.sa/) and the Research Computing (http://rcweb.kaust.edu.sa/KAUST/ResearchComputing/) for the computer cycles they donated to this project. I am especially grateful for the use of the Shaheen supecomputer and Noor cluster. I also acknowledge the support of the csim sponsors (http://csim.kaust.edu.sa).
Finally, I have accumulated a huge debt to many csim colleagues and friends at kaust. It would be difficult to mention each of them by name, but I would like to express my appreciation for their help and accompany throughout the period I spent at kaust.