Acknowledgements

I would like to give a huge thanks to my advisor Dr. Li Ma for his guidance and support throughout my project. I would also like to thank Dr. Tony Sung and Alex Sibley of the Duke Cancer Institute, Dr. Eric Monson of the Duke Data and Visualization Services, and Drs. Fan Li, Alexander Volfovsky, Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, and Amy Herring of the Duke Department of Statistical Science for their help throughout this year.