It is with immense pleasure I begin to write this section. If not the reason for this being the last section I wanted to fill in, it is the pure pleasure of thanking every single heart, that helped me get to this stage, with a few drops of tears of happiness.
It was a pleasant spring evening when Jacarandas were rendering Brisbane into a paradise. On the verge of completing our masters degree, Sudarsanan and I were seriously discussing our future with a warm cup of tea in our school's terrace. ``Hello boys" - the voice of Prof. Maria Orlowska removed the seriousness in the air. At that point in time, she was nothing more than my favourite lecturer who is capable of performing a concert singing nothing but databases. The next few minutes of our talk, that evening on that terrace, changed not only what I use to think about her but also about myself, the world and life. Her simple words and that enthralling polish accent have made my three years a magical journey into computer science research. Her words never failed to throw me ropes whenever I fell in abyss or nailed me to the ground when I was flying high. I would like to thank her for everything she has done to me.
With all the magic going around on one side, Assoc. Prof. Shazia Sadiq was always pointing me towards reality. For without her, I would have still been thinking that I was at Hogwarts. She taught me various aspects about the research community, she made me meet most of my deadlines, she was always available for help and suggestions. I would like to thank her for all the support and motivation she has provided towards completion of this thesis.
I can never forget those sleepless nights working on various problems with Sudarsanan. Arguing over our solutions, implementing, analysing results, we suddenly realising dawn and walk along the lake behind our school to have coffee with ducks and turtles. It is paining now to realise that all those times have gone. I would like to thank Sudarsanan for his company throughout, for making me not miss home, for his support and advise, for sharing moments of highs and lows, for his chicken and fish curries, and much more. Finishing writing our theses together is a great way to mark ten years of our friendship.
I would like to sincerely thank The University of Queensland and School of ITEE for financial, technical support and the infra structure provided for doing research. I would like to thank head of school Dr.Paul Bailes, for supporting my travel to conferences and workshops. I would like to thank Prof. Xiaofang Zhou, Dr. Xue Li and Dr. Guido Governatori for their suggestions and support regarding various issues during my research. I would like to thank Ms. Kath Williamson and Ms. Kate Williamson for their wonderful help and support with regards to various official matters. I would like to thank all staff and students of my Data and Knowledge Engineering group and EII research group, especially Dat Ma, Joe, Juggapong, Alex, Hoyoung and Son, for their support and advise throughout these three years.
Special thanks to Ruopeng Lu and Belinda Carter for being wonderful room mates and putting up with lot of things especially my Tamil film music collection and never ending phone calls.
I would like to acknowledge Mr. Andris Krumins and Mr. Sashi Mallappa of Brisbane City Council's Brisbane Water team for their kind cooperation towards sharing knowledge regarding water distribution system and current monitoring methods in and around Brisbane.
I would like to thank all my Tamil community friends and their families in Brisbane for making me feel home with their warm hospitality, exotic food and above all their care and love.
I would also like to thank all my friends from different parts of the world for wishing me luck towards this research.
I would like to thank all my teachers from Loyola Matriculation, Bharat Computer Training Centre, Anna University and The University of Queensland for preparing me for this long journey towards research.
Finally, I would like to thank my family members for their support and love. My father Mr. Vairamuthu, one of the leading poets in India, has been a great inspiration for me in life. Amidst his super busy schedule, he always remembered to call me every week to discuss my progress. I was a mischievous kid when my mother Dr. Ponmani was writing her PhD thesis. I remember making her cry after most parent-teacher meetings during my primary school, when my teachers lose hope in me and at a stage even declared me fit only to act in movies. I hope this thesis would be a great consolation to her. I also acknowledge efforts of my younger brother Kabilan for entirely taking my responsibilities and duties back home during the course of my research.
For a person who truly believed he is going to be a high school drop out, I think this attempt is a decent achievement. It would not have been possible without support and guidance of so many people. I would like to thank them all once again.
