Hossein Nasrollahi

As global energy concerns escalate, there is a growing need for effective strategies to promote sustainable energy practices among individuals and communities. Gamification, the integration of game-design elements in non-game contexts, emerges as a promising tool to enhance user engagement and foster sustainable behaviour in energy management. In this review, we examine the theoretical aspects of gamification and its application in energy management in users’ households, highlighting its potential to transform repetitive or even monotonous tasks into engaging activities, focusing on studies that measure a long-term effect. We delve into various gamified elements adopted in long-term studies, such as feedback, social interactions, point systems, leader boards, narrative-driven challenges, etc., to understand their effect on user motivation and behavioural changes. From our set of studies, we found out that strong social game elements contribute the most to the long-term behaviour change of energy usage. One more condition of behaviour change is strong positive user satisfaction: the game should be engaging. We highlight the possible limitations of gamification in an energy management situation, a strong need for better practices of design and evaluation, and innovative approaches (such as DSM; Demand Side Management) in gamification for long-term engagement in household energy management.

In recent years, serious energy games (SEGs) garnered increasing attention as an innovative and effective approach to tackling energy-related challenges. This review delves into the multifaceted landscape of SEG, specifically focusing on their wide-ranging applications in various contexts. The study investigates potential enhancements in user engagement achieved through integrating social connections, personalization, and data integration. Among the main challenges identified, previous studies overlooked the full potential of serious games in addressing emerging needs in energy systems, opting for oversimplified approaches. Further, these studies exhibit limited scalability and constrained generalizability, which poses challenges in applying their findings to larger energy systems and diverse scenarios. By incorporating lessons learned from prior experiences, this review aims to propel the development of SEG toward more innovative and impactful directions. It is firmly believed that positive behavior changes among individuals can be effectively encouraged by using SEG.

Pressure control in water distribution networks (WDNs) reduces leaks and bursting. Thus, it is regarded as a valuable solution to cut costs related to the operation and maintenance of WDNs and it is recommended for use in deteriorated water distribution pipes. However, growing consumer demand for satisfactory performance from faucets, combined with reduced water pressure from water supply companies, has resulted in an increased need for domestic water pressure booster systems (WPBSs) and has led to an increase in the energy demand. This misalignment of interests between water companies and energy consumers highlights the water–energy nexus perspective. This research aims to find a solution for optimizing the pressure of any WDN through the application of WPBSs to simultaneously minimize the cost associated with water leaks, repairs of burst pipes, and energy consumption. This methodology is applied to Baharestan city, where an optimum pressure of 47.6 mH₂O is calculated. According to the sensitivity analysis of the inputs, the optimized pressure and cost are most sensitive to water loss and leakage exponent, respectively. Moreover, the hourly optimization of water pressure based on changes in demand and energy prices throughout the day is estimated to cut costs by 41%.

A holistic approach to the management of water, energy, food, and the environment is required to both meet the socioeconomic demands of the future as well as sustainable development of these limited resources. The Urmia Lake Basin has faced environmental, social, and economic challenges in recent years, and this situation is likely to worsen under the impacts of climate change. For this study, an adaptability analysis of this region is proposed for the 2040 horizon year. Two models, the water evaluation and planning (WEAP (Stockholm Environmental Institute, Stockholm, Sweden)) and the low emissions analysis platform (LEAP (Stockholm Environmental Institute, Boston, MA, USA)), are integrated to simulate changes in water, energy, food, and the environment over these 20 years. Two climate scenarios and nine policy scenarios are combined to assess sustainable development using a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach. Results show that, through pursuing challenging goals in agricultural, potable water, energy, and industrial sectors, sustainable development will be achieved. In this scenario, the Lake Urmia water level will reach its ecological water level in 2040. However, social, technical, and political challenges are considered obstacles to implementing the goals of this scenario. In addition, industry growth and industry structure adjustment have the most impact on sustainable development achievement.

Automatic detection of the human emotion is an important area in computer science and psychology to develop adaptive Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to extract a user's pleasure during English comprehension. The approach is based on processing the mouse movement data during the interaction with the system and determining whether or not the user enjoys reading the text or answering the questions. The approach has been implemented and the result shows adequate accuracy in determining the emotional state of the user. This study shows that it is important to consider the emotional momentum and its persistence over a period of time in determining the emotional state at any given time.