Architecting e-business applications is a complex design activity. This is mainly due to the numerous architectural decisions to be made, including the selection of alternative technologies, software components, design strategies, patterns, standards, protocols, platforms, etc. Further complexities arise due to the fact that these alternatives often vary considerably in their support for different quality attributes. Moreover, there are often different groups of stakeholders involved, with each having their own quality goals and criteria. Furthermore, different architectural decisions often include interdependent alternatives, where the selection of one alternative for one particular decision impacts the selections to be made for alternatives from other different decisions. There have been several research efforts aiming at providing sufficient mechanisms and tools for facilitating the architectural evaluation and design process. These approaches, however, address architectural decisions in isolation, where they focus on evaluating a limited set of alternatives belonging to one architectural decision. This has been the primary motivation behind the development of the Architectural DEcision-Making Support (ADEMS) framework, which basically aims at supporting stakeholders and architects during the architectural decision-making process by helping them determining a suitable combination of architectural alternatives. ADEMS framework is an iterative process that leverages rigorous quantitative decision-making techniques available in the literature of Management Science, particularly Multiple Attribute Decision-Making (MADM) methods and Integer Programming (IP). Furthermore, due to the number of architectural decisions involved as well as the variety of available alternatives, the architecture design space is expected to be huge. For this purpose, a query language has been developed, known as the Architecture Query Language (AQL), to aid architects in exploring and analyzing the design space in further depth, and also in examining different ???what-if??? architectural scenarios. In addition, in order to support leveraging ADEMS framework, a support tool has been implemented for carrying out the sophisticated set of mathematical computations and comparisons of the large number of architectural combinations, which might otherwise be hard to conduct using manual techniques. The primary contribution of the tool is in its help to identify, evaluate, and rank all potential combinations of alternatives based on their satisfaction to quality preferences provided by the different stakeholders. Finally, to assess the feasibility of ADEMS, three different case studies have been conducted relating to the architectural evaluation of different e-business and enterprise applications. Results obtained for the three case studies were quite positive as they showed an acceptable accuracy level for the decisions recommended by ADEMS, and at a reasonable time and effort costs for the different system stakeholders.

Architecting e-business applications is a complex design activity. This is mainly due to the numerous architectural decisions to be made, including the selection of alternative technologies, software components, design strategies, patterns, standards, protocols, platforms, etc. Further complexities arise due to the fact that these alternatives often vary considerably in their support for different quality attributes. Moreover, there are often different groups of stakeholders involved, with each having their own quality goals and criteria. Furthermore, different architectural decisions often include interdependent alternatives, where the selection of one alternative for one particular decision impacts the selections to be made for alternatives from other different decisions. There have been several research efforts aiming at providing sufficient mechanisms and tools for facilitating the architectural evaluation and design process. These approaches, however, address architectural decisions in isolation, where they focus on evaluating a limited set of alternatives belonging to one architectural decision. This has been the primary motivation behind the development of the Architectural DEcision-Making Support (ADEMS) framework, which basically aims at supporting stakeholders and architects during the architectural decision-making process by helping them determining a suitable combination of architectural alternatives. ADEMS framework is an iterative process that leverages rigorous quantitative decision-making techniques available in the literature of Management Science, particularly Multiple Attribute Decision-Making (MADM) methods and Integer Programming (IP). Furthermore, due to the number of architectural decisions involved as well as the variety of available alternatives, the architecture design space is expected to be huge. For this purpose, a query language has been developed, known as the Architecture Query Language (AQL), to aid architects in exploring and analyzing the design space in further depth, and also in examining different ???what-if??? architectural scenarios. In addition, in order to support leveraging ADEMS framework, a support tool has been implemented for carrying out the sophisticated set of mathematical computations and comparisons of the large number of architectural combinations, which might otherwise be hard to conduct using manual techniques. The primary contribution of the tool is in its help to identify, evaluate, and rank all potential combinations of alternatives based on their satisfaction to quality preferences provided by the different stakeholders. Finally, to assess the feasibility of ADEMS, three different case studies have been conducted relating to the architectural evaluation of different e-business and enterprise applications. Results obtained for the three case studies were quite positive as they showed an acceptable accuracy level for the decisions recommended by ADEMS, and at a reasonable time and effort costs for the different system stakeholders.

L'un des défis actuels de la chimie alimentaire est de développer des produits avec une qualité sanitaire et sensorielle optimale. Ceci est particulièrement important dans les produits traités thermiquement, tels que les produits céréaliers. Lors de la cuisson et à partir des ingrédients, un nombre considérable de composés peuvent se former. Certains suscitent une préoccupation sanitaire émergente, lorsque d'autres jouent un rôle sensoriel indéniable. Comprendre la réactivité des constituants devient alors un levier puissant pour développer des voies d'amélioration des aliments. Ce travail porte sur les effets des ingrédients et conditions de cuisson dans la génération de furane, composé possiblement cancérigène, et furfural, composé odorant contribuant à l'arôme caractéristique de la génoise. Afin de maîtriser la réactivité et ainsi optimiser la qualité des produits, une approche globale a été adoptée, incluant l'étude des composés volatils, des propriétés physicochimiques et sensorielles et l'appréciation hédonique des consommateurs. Ce travail propose une méthodologie et ouvre des pistes intéressantes pour développer des stratégies efficaces de maîtrise de la qualité globale des produits transformés. / A current challenge for food chemists consists in developing safe yet appealing food. This is particularly difficult in thermally-treated foods, like baked products, since a great number of compounds may be produced during heating. While some of these are of health concern, others contribute to other key aspects of quality, such as aroma or color, revealing the need of considering reactivity into food quality design. This work deals with the effects of formulation and baking conditions on the generation of furan, a heatinduced contaminant, and furfural, contributing typical aroma to sponge cake. Moreover, a holistic approach was adopted, covering volatile generation, physical properties, sensory evaluation and consumer tests, both for further understanding reactivity and optimizing product quality. This work is certainly an important step towards the development of novel strategies for qualitydriven design of heat-treated food.