The subject of this thesis, as well as the fundamental guidelines on combining existing theoretical works and methodologies, were suggested by professor Doros Theodorou. His high standards, along with his valuable insight on any matter raised in the course of this thesis, were decisive for the quality of this work. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Stefanos Anogiannakis for providing me with the very much needed theoretical and computational background, as well as for his endless willingness to

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... help me with any issue that came up, in this one year of my collaboration with him. I am also grateful to Ph.D. candidate Panagiotis-Nikolaos Tzounis for sharing his knowledge with me, and for his immense help on critical points of this thesis. I have, also, been helped and educated by interacting with Ph.D. candidate Vasilis Georgilas, as well as all the members of COMSE group. I have to thank my committee members Leonidas Tsetseris and Epaminondas Voutsas for devoting their time to assessing this thesis. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 619793 CoLiSA.MMP. Scienomics SARL is gratefully acknowledged for making their software available to us through the Scienomics Group of Scientific Excellence (SGSE) program.