My greatest gratitude belongs to Professors Tibor Grasser and Hajdin Ceric for their continuous patience, time, and support of my work through a countless number of discussions, suggestions, comments, and encouragements.
A huge thanks to Dr. David Holec for his kind collaboration and guidance. Calculations in Chapter 3 are based on his code, and the work in Chapter 4 is inspired and partially supported by him.
I would like to acknowledge Dipl.-Ing. Wolfhard H. Zisser for his continuous support through the entirety of my Ph.D. project, in particular his contribution to the discussion and implementation of the model described in Chapter 5.
During the course of my Ph.D. project I had the privilege of discussing my ideas and results with many people who consequently helped my research. For that I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. M. Ciavarella, Prof. L. B. Freund, Prof. H. Gao, Prof. C. Humphreys, Dr. A. Köck, Prof. A. Krost, Prof. N. Neophytou, Prof. S. Raghavan, Prof. J. Vlassak, Prof. J. R. Willis, Dr. J. Baumgartl, Dr. T. Detzel, Dr. O. Haeberlen, Dr. B. Karunamurthy, Dr. G. Kravchenko, Dr. Lavanga, Dr. G. Pozzovivo, Dr. G. Prechtl, G. Galasso, and G. Vaccari.
I would like to thank my parents, Aurelia and Ferdinando, and my sister Sarida, for supporting me spiritually throughout my entire life. Without them I would never have reached such results. Grazie infinite!
I am grateful for Christ’s provision of Life and Reason.