ד"ר אחמד ג'בארה

Ahmad Jbara July 13, 2023

CURRICULUM VITAE

1 Personal Details

Current Address : Tayibe 4040000, P.O.B 3860

Electronic Address: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

2 Higher Education

3 Employement

4 Research Interests

1. Software Engineering

•   Program comprehension
•   Code complexity metrics
•   Code regularity and cloning
•   Code visualization
•   Con guration complexity of large-scale systems (e.g. Linux)
• 2. Systems Engineering

  Conceptual modeling using the object-process methodology (OPM)

  On the gap between systems engineering & software engineering

  Computational capabilities in conceptual models

3. Secure usability

  Security indicators & phishing attacks

4. Open source vulnerability assessment

My research focuses on software engineering, and in particular program comprehension and

code complexity metrics. My research applies experimental methods, combining traditional

techniques with advanced ones, such as eye tracking. The question that I study is what makes it

hard to comprehend source code. I coined the term 'code regularity' as a new factor that a ects

code comprehension.

I am also interested in code visualization as a way to improve comprehensibility, and I

introduced the Control Structure Diagram (CSD) to visualize very long functions.

In the area of con guration complexity, I studied the Linux con guration complexity and

showed a few inconsistencies within the system.

Previously, I did some work in the  eld of secure usability to cope with phishing attacks.

Speci cally, I implemented a plugin (Trustbar) for the Firefox browser and some insights from my

research were adopted in an early version of Internet Explorer.

As for system engineering, I have recently expanded my research to the domain of conceptual

modeling of systems using Object-Process Methodology (OPM). In particular, I research and

develop ways to narrow the gap between systems engineering and software engineering where I try

to automate the transition from the conceptual model level to the code, enhance OPM with

computational capabilities and investigate the viability of code generation from OPM models and

round-trip engineering between code and OPM models. These ideas have been implemented in

OPCloud where I was an architect during my stay at ESML.

5 GRANTS

A. Grants Awarded

6 TEACHING

A. Courses/Workshops Taught in Recent Years in Academia and Industry

B. Massive Open Online Courses – MOOCs

I have been actively involved in the development of a MOOC course titled "Model-Based

Systems Engineering with Object-Process Methodology" for the edX platform at the

Enterprise Systems Modeling Laboratory (ESML) of the Technion. In particular I was the lecturer

of the Arabic version of the course, consultant for technical issues while integrating the supporting

tool of the methodology taught in the course in the edX platform, and an evaluator of the quality 

of scripts' translation from English/Hebrew to Arabic. Very recently I have recorded the Arabic

version of the advanced course.

C. Hi-Tech Program

'Perchi Hi-Tech' in Hebrew, 'Baraem Hi-Tech' in Arabic, and 'Hi-Tech owers' in English. This is

the name of a program that the School of Computer Science of the Netanya Academic College

o ers to high school students. In this program courses are spanned over 5 years rather than 3 so as

to let students continue their study at high school. Even though the program is meant for high

school students, we have agreed to accept exceptional students from junior high schools. I have

been in this challenging program for many years and contributed a lot to its success.

7 Fellowships, Awards and Honors

•   Winter 2022, outstanding lecturer award (Technion, Israel)
•   Spring 2022, outstanding lecturer award (Technion, Israel)
•   Winter 2021, excellence in teaching (Technion, Israel)
•   Spring 2018, excellence in teaching (Technion, Israel)
•   2016, excellence in teaching (Netanya Academic College, Israel)
•   2014, excellence in teaching (Netanya Academic College, Israel)
•   2013, excellence in teaching (Netanya Academic College, Israel)
•   2012, excellence in teaching (Netanya Academic College, Israel)

 

8 Scholarly Positions and Activities outside the Institution

  International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2023 Tool Demonstration Track,

program committee member

  ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, ETRA 2023, program

committee member

  ACM Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications, ETRA 2022 program

committee member

  International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2022 Tool Demonstration

Track – program committee member

  Computers in Human Behavior Reports Journal – reviewer

  International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2020 Programming Education

Track – program committee member

  IEEE Systems Journal – reviewer

  Systems Journal – reviewer

  Sensors Journal – reviewer

  ACM Symposium on eye tracking research & applications, ETRA 19 – program committee

member

  INCOSE systems and Software Interface Working Group – member

  ACM Symposium on eye tracking research & applications, ETRA 18 – reviewer

  International Conference on Program Comprehension, ICPC 2014 Tool Demonstration

Track – program committee member

  International initiative for collecting and analyzing eye movements – contributor to the

Distributed Collection of Eye Movement in Programming

http://emipws.org/participating-labs/.

9 Participation in Scholarly Conferences

A. Active Participation

10 Graduate Students

  2017-2020: Natali Levi, Ph.D., Technion. Integrating software engineering into model-based

systems engineering. Primary Advisor: Prof. Dov Dori, Co-advisor: Dr. Ahmad Jbara

  2021-present: Yulia Tsagelnik, M.Sc., Technion. Primary Advisor: Prof. Dov Dori,

Co-advisor: Dr. Ahmad Jbara

11 Publications

Submitted

[1] Ahmad Jbara, Hanan Kohen, and Dov Dori. \Model-Based Cybersecurity: Automating

Common Vulnerabilities Reporting". Oct. 2022.

[2] Natali Levi, Stephan Marwedel, Ahmad Jbara, and Dov Dori. \Towards Fusing Systems and

Software Engineering: A Methodical Approach to Executable Integrative Modeling".

submitted. 2020.

Articles in Refereed Journals

[3] Dov Dori, Ahmad Jbara, Yongkai E. Yang, Andrew M. Liu, and Charles M. Oman.

\Object-Process Methodology as an Alternative to Human Factors Task Analysis". In:

Human Factors (2021). doi: 10.1177/00187208211048384.

[4] Roman Bednarik, Teresa Busjahn, Agostino Gibaldi, Alireza Ahadi, Maria Bielikova,

Martha Crosby, Kai Essig, Fabian Fagerholm, Ahmad Jbara, Raymond Lister, Pavel Orlov,

James Paterson, Bonita Sharif, Teemu Sirki fd fd, Jan Stelovsky, Jozef Tvarozek,

Hana Vrzakova, and Ian van der Linde. \EMIP: The eye movements in programming

dataset". In: Science of Computer Programming (2020). issn: 0167-6423. doi:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2020.102520.

[5] Natali Levi, Ahmad Jbara, and Dov Dori. \The Model Fidelity Hierarchy: From Text to

Conceptual, Computational, and Executable Model". In: IEEE Systems Journal (2020).

[6] Ahmad Jbara, Arieh Bibliowicz, Niva Wengrowicz, Natali Levi, and Dov Dori. \Toward

Integrating Systems Engineering with Software Engineering through Object-Process

Programming". In: International Journal of Information Technology (May 2020).

[7] L. Li, N. L. Soskin, A. Jbara, M. Karpel, and D. Dori. \Model-Based Systems Engineering

for Aircraft Design With Dynamic Landing Constraints Using Object-Process Methodology".

In: IEEE Access 7 (May 2019), pp. 61494{61511. issn: 2169-3536. doi:

10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2915917.

[8] Jason M. Casebolt, Ahmad Jbara, and Dov Dori. \Business process improvement using

Object-Process Methodology". In: Systems Engineering 0.0 (2019). doi: 10.1002/sys.21499.

url: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sys.21499.

[9] Dov Dori, Ahmad Jbara, Natali Levi, and Niva Wengrowicz. \Object-Process Methodology,

OPM ISO 19450 – OPCloud and the Evolution of OPM Modeling Tools". In: Systems

Engineering Letters, Project Performance International (PPI) SyEN 61, January 30

(invited) (2018).

[10] Ahmad Jbara and Dror G. Feitelson. \How programmers read regular code: a controlled

experiment using eye tracking". In: Empirical Software Engineering 22.3 (2017). Invited

extended journal version, pp. 1440{1477. doi: 10.1007/s10664-016-9477-x.

[11] Ahmad Jbara, Adam Matan, and Dror G. Feitelson. \High-MCC Functions in the Linux

Kernel". In: Empirical Softw. Engg. 19.5 (Oct. 2014). Invited extended journal version,

pp. 1261{1298. issn: 1382-3256. doi: 10.1007/s10664-013-9275-7.

[12] Amir Herzberg and Ahmad Jbara. \Security and Identi cation Indicators for Browsers

Against Spoo ng and Phishing Attacks". In: ACM Trans. Internet Technol. 8.4 (Oct. 2008),

16:1{16:36. issn: 1533-5399. doi: 10.1145/1391949.1391950.

Articles in Conference Proceedings

[13] Ahmad Jbara, Or Shacham, Bar Ben Michael, and Omer Tavor. \SimplyHover: Improving

Comprehension of else Statements". In: 28Nd International Conference on Program

Comprehension. ICPC 2020. (Best Tool Paper Award). ACM, Oct. 2020.

[14] Natali Levi-Soskin, Ron Shaoul, Hanan Kohen, Ahmad Jbara, and Dov Dori. \Model-Based

Diagnosis with FTTell: Assessing the Potential for Pediatric Failure to Thrive (FTT) During

the Perinatal Stage". In: Information Systems: Research, Development, Applications,

Education. Ed. by Stanis law Wrycza and Jacek Ma slankowski. Cham: Springer International

Publishing, 2019, pp. 37{47. isbn: 978-3-030-29608-7.

[15] Ahmad Jbara, Mousa Agbaria, Alon Adoni, Malek Jabareen, and Ameen Yasin. \ICSD:

Interactive Visual Support for Understanding Code Control Structure". In: Proceedings of

the 26th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering

(SANER). SANER 2019. Hangzhou, China: 2019.

[16] Niva Wengrowicz and Ahmad Jbara. \Patterns of System Thinking While Using OPM

Conceptual Models". In: NARST 2019 Annual International Conference. USA: 2019.

[17] Ahmad Jbara and Dror G. Feitelson. \How Programmers Read Regular Code: A Controlled

Experiment Using Eye Tracking". In: Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE 23rd International

Conference on Program Comprehension. ICPC '15. Florence, Italy: IEEE Press, 2015,

pp. 244{254. url: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2820282.2820319.

[18] A. Jbara, A. Matan, and D. G. Feitelson. \High-MCC functions in the Linux kernel". In:

2012 20th IEEE International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC). June 2012,

pp. 83{92. doi: 10.1109/ICPC.2012.6240512.

[19] Ahmad Jbara and Dror G. Feitelson. \JCSD: Visual Support for Understanding Code

Control Structure". In: Proceedings of the 22Nd International Conference on Program

Comprehension. ICPC 2014. Hyderabad, India: ACM, 2014, pp. 300{303. isbn:

978-1-4503-2879-1. doi: 10.1145/2597008.2597801. url:

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2597008.2597801.

[20] A. Jbara and D. G. Feitelson. \Characterization and assessment of the linux con guration

complexity". In: 2013 IEEE 13th International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis

and Manipulation (SCAM). Sept. 2013, pp. 11{20. doi: 10.1109/SCAM.2013.6648179.

[21] A. Jbara. \Characterization of the Linux con guration system". In: 2012 20th IEEE

International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC). June 2012, pp. 273{276. doi:

10.1109/ICPC.2012.6240503.

[22] Ahmad Jbara and Dror G. Feitelson. \On the E ect of Code Regularity on Comprehension".

In: Proceedings of the 22Nd International Conference on Program Comprehension. ICPC

2014. Hyderabad, India: ACM, 2014, pp. 189{200. isbn: 978-1-4503-2879-1. doi:

10.1145/2597008.2597140. url: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2597008.2597140.

Book Chapter

[23] Dov Dori, Hanan Kohen, Ahmad Jbara, Niva Wengrowicz, Rea Lavi, Natali Levi Soskin,

K r Bernstein, and Uri Shani. \OPCloud: the foundation of a new OPM-based system

design paradigm for Industry 4". In: Systems Engineering in the Fourth Industrial

Revolution: Big Data, Novel Technologies, and Modern Systems Engineering. Ed. by

Ron S. Kenett, Robert S. Swarz, and Avigdor Zonnenshain. Wiley-Blackwell (March 11,

2020), Dec. 2020. Chap. 11.

Other Scienti c Publications

[24] Ahmad Jbara. Cyberspace Modeling Using the Object Process Methodology. AFCEA TechNet

Augusta. Aug. 2019.

[25] Ahmad Jbara and Dror G. Feitelson. Quanti cation of code regularity using preprocessing

and compression. Manuscript. Jan. 2014.

[26] Amir Herzberg and Ahmad Jbara. Save the Phish: (Re)-Establishing Trust in the Web. Dr.

Dobbs Journal. Oct. 2005.

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