Checkstyle - possible NPE and unneeded predicates removed

Fixed issues with the following 2 categories:

1. Removes unneeded predicates in cases where the result of the expression is always predicted
2. Removes possible NPE cases and passing of the null for varargs. 
See my note above please. Pass a null for a varargs argument is somewhat confusing because you'd then have to make a distinction between a null value vs zero-length value.