First I want to thank Jim to be my advisor. Under his guidance, I successfully overcame many difficulties and learn a lot about network optimization. I still remember the hard time when I finished the first scaling premultiplier code in five days in August, 1995. At that week, we communicated by email very often, about five times a day. In each email, he explained my questions patiently, and I felt my quick progress from his advises.
Second I want to thank Yusin. He always helps me a lot either in my study or my life. In the first semester I studied in MIT, I asked him many many questions in C programming and Network Optimization, and he always answered my questions quickly and detailedly. I learned both C programming and Network Optimization in MIT, and Yusin was the person affected me the most in both fields.
Thanks to Izumi, for her help on this thesis. My codes are based on hers. I always thought I would have progressed one or two months late on my thesis without her help. She was the first person explained me how premultiplier algorithm works. Also, with her clever implementation about the part of rerooting tree in premultiplier algorithm, I saved much time in implementing and debugging, so that I could visit Cape Cod with my girl friend.
Special thanks to Dr. Goldberg and Dr. Cheriyan. With their kind help, I could use NETGEN and cs2 successfully to perform my computational testings. Also, thanks to Jen-Shan Wang for his advice in using NETGEN to create larger networks.
Thanks to Prof. Ching-hsiung Ho, and Prof. Melody Dai in NCKU for taking care of me.
I also want to thank my friends in Boston: Ming-chih, Chen-jung, Yu-hsuan, Te-san, Pei-chen, Chia-ming, Chien-ning, Long-sheng, Chih-hao, Wen-tang, Eva, Shu-sheng, Ming-yi, Yi-chun, Chen-chi, and Penny. Being with them make my two years in MIT full of fun.
Thanks to MIT for having such a good computational environment so that I could login 10 Sun Sparc5 Stations to finish my testings in three days instead of one month. Also, thanks to Chien Ma, Francisco, Calvin Ying, Yan Dong, Gary Wong, Shiao-bin Soong, Yi Wang and Roy. Taking courses and working with them for problem sets benefitted me a lot.
Thanks to my friends on Internet: Jyun-Jye, Chih-chieh, Chen-li, Sheng-pen, Ken Hwa, and Shih-hsin. I may never meet some of them in my life. However, with their encouragement, my life becomes more colorful even in such boring place like MIT.
I want to thank my girl friend, Shin-I. With her love, I have never felt alone. Also, thanks to Jeng-wen Ko, who introduced me BBS, so that I had chance to meet with Shin-I, and changed my life.
Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my parents. Without their endless support and love for me, I would never achieve my current position. I wish my mother lives happily always, and my father in the heaven be proud of me.