I would like to thank Dr. Roger Easton for giving me an idea and letting me run with it. I am grateful for his understanding and consideration in allowing me to conduct this research mostly on my own. With all the pressure of finishing up my degree and holding down a full-time job at Kodak, it was extremely helpful (to me) having the freedom to explore ideas and formulate experiments on my own. I succeeded in some aspects of the research, and failed in others. As I have been told by many at RIT and at Kodak, "Such is the nature of scientific research." I learned an immense amount.

I also want to acknowledge my Fiancee, Lesley, for showing patience and giving me the motivation to succeed in finishing my degree.

Thanks also to Mike Clark and Jay Shelofsky, my supervisors at Kodak. They have been great in supporting the pursuit of my degree. Thanks to Kodak's Tuition Reimbursement program, for obvious reasons.

Finally, I want to thank Dr. Jonathan S. Arney for his patience and support. Dr. Arney is a paradigm for what a professor/educator should be. We (the CIS community) are blessed to have such a person as Director of the Undergraduate Program. Thanks for being my advisor. You helped me--and everyone--get through it all.