This thesis is dedicated to my parents. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Jason Leigh and Andrew Johnson of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory for their support and guidance. Special thanks to Tanya Berger-Wolf for allowing me to start this work and providing valuable suggestions and feedback. Thanks to all the

Acknowledgements First, i would like to thank my supervisors Angela Schwering and Kai-Uwe Kühn-berger for their valuable advice and support. Furthermore, i credit Helmar Gust and Ulf Krumnack for helpful discussions about the formal topics involved. Additionally, my gratitude goes to Egon Stemle and Jackie Griego for their help to typeset and proofread this thesis.

........................................................ 4 ABBREVIATIONS................................................ 6 PAPERS IN THIS THESIS...................................... 7 INTRODUCTION................................................. 8 Teleost reproduction...................................... 8 Oocyte growth.............................................. 12 Vitellogenin...............

....................................................................................................................... i Declaration of authorship ............................................................................................. iii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................iv Table of contents ..............

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who assisted in the completion of this thesis, both directly and indirectly. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Eva K. Lee. I am deeply grateful to her for constant guidance, inspiration, financial support, and encouragement throughout my stay at Georgia Tech.

To my parents ii Acknowledgements I am very thankful to four individuals who guided and mentored me throughout the research of this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Tom Farrell for his advice, patience and encouragement during the course of the research.

....................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................... iv DEDICATION................................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS................

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my wife, Jennifer Flenner for her patients and support. I would also like to thank my thesis adviser, Brian DeFacio for his guidance in this project. A. Lazzarini was kind enough to allow the use of the Caltech data for this investigation. Conversations with B. Mashhoom and S. Kopeikin about general relativity were invaluable.

i Statement Hereby I do state that the present project has been undertaken by myself and with unique help which is referred within this thesis. ii Acknowledgements I would like to express my special thanks to all members of Technische Informatik 5-Telematik department, especially my supervisor Prof. Dr. Friedrich H. Vogt and Marcus Venzke for their help, support and cooperation. iii Anneme ...

__________________________________________________________________I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ______________________________________________________ II TABLE OF CONTENTS_______________________________________________________ III LIST OF FIGURES___________________________________________________________VII LIST OF TABLES____________________________________________________________ IX ABBREVIATIONS _______...