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To explore contemporary college students' lack of learning motivation, this paper evaluates the students' comprehensive performance by quoting the fuzzy neural network system and adjusting the teaching plan according to the evaluation results to drive the students' learning enthusiasm and improve the student's performance. The University campus is unique for students. They need to learn professional knowledge and face the environment of entering society in the future, which is equivalent to a turning point in the undertaking. Learning here is relatively easy, lacks parental constraints, and their time is relatively free. After learning without motivation, people will also show a negative side. By adjusting teachers' teaching plans, this paper improves students' learning subjectivity, breaks the deadlock of teacher-student interaction in the past, changes students' learning atmosphere, and improves students' comprehensive quality. It also gives suggestions for the innovative teachers' teaching methods system, which will contribute to developing China's future education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims to review and develop a Consolidated Water Security Index (CWSI) as a tool to evaluate water security status within river basins by considering five key dimensions, namely (i) water supply and sanitation, (ii) water demand and socio-economic, (iii) water ecosystem and environment, (iv) water-related disaster and (v) water governance. This index is a holistic assessment since it aims to capture the interconnected and complex nature of water-related issues by considering multiple dimensional aspects which helps stakeholders and policymakers to understand the overall status of water security. This framework uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), involving pairwise comparison, normalisation and weighting. Then, a CWSI will be calculated using the Linear Aggregation method. The robustness of this consolidated index is validated using sensitivity analysis by modifying the weight in the linear aggregation formula. By following each step cautiously, a CWSI can be constructed and interpreted correctly, thus, becoming a powerful tool for conveying complex information to the different stakeholders and assessing the status of water security with river basins. The CWSI allows decision-makers to prioritise areas that are most at risk and facilitate sustainable planning and management of water resources. [Display omitted] • Lacking generally applicable approach for measuring water security. • Decision makers address water issues in silos, undermining water security efforts. • Contextualisation needed to acknowledge complex interactions in water security. • Integrating WASH and IWRM principles is crucial for water security assessment. • CWSI reconciles multiple dimensions and indicators for water security assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storage is important for flood mitigation and non-point source pollution control. However, to seek a cost-effective design scheme for storage tanks is very complex. This paper presents a two-stage optimization framework to find an optimal scheme for storage tanks using storm water management model (SWMM). The objectives are to minimize flooding, total suspended solids (TSS) load and storage cost. The framework includes two modules: (i) the analytical module, which evaluates and ranks the flooding nodes with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) using two indicators (flood depth and flood duration), and then obtains the preliminary scheme by calculating two efficiency indicators (flood reduction efficiency and TSS reduction efficiency); (ii) the iteration module, which obtains an optimal scheme using a generalized pattern search (GPS) method based on the preliminary scheme generated by the analytical module. The proposed approach was applied to a catchment in CZ city, China, to test its capability in choosing design alternatives. Different rainfall scenarios are considered to test its robustness. The results demonstrate that the optimal framework is feasible, and the optimization is fast based on the preliminary scheme. The optimized scheme is better than the preliminary scheme for reducing runoff and pollutant loads under a given storage cost. The multi-objective optimization framework presented in this paper may be useful in finding the best scheme of storage tanks or low impact development (LID) controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal areas are at a higher risk of flooding, and novel changes in the climate are induced to raise the sea level. Flood acceleration and frequency have increased recently because of unplanned infrastructural conveniences and anthropogenic activities. Therefore, the assessment of flood susceptibility mapping is considered the most significant flood management model. In this paper, flood susceptibility identification is performed by applying the innovative Multi-criteria decision-making model (MCDM) called Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) by ensembles with Support vector machine (AHP-SVM) and Decision Tree (AHP-DT). This model combines two Representation concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios such as RCP 2.6 & RCP 8.5. The factors influencing the coastal flooding in Bandar Abbas, Iran, identified through Flood susceptibility mapping. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) has been applied to evaluate the Coastal flood conditioning factors, and ensemble machine learning (ML) approaches are employed for Coastal risk factor (CRF) prediction and classification. The statistical variances are measured through Friedman and Wilcoxon signed rank tests and statistical metrics such as Accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Among the models, AHP-DT obtained an improved AUC value of ROC as 0.95. After applying the ML models, the northern and western park of Raidak Basin River recognises very low and low flood susceptibility because of their topographic characteristics. The eastern part of the middle section fell very high and high CFSM. Observed from this result analysis, the people living nearer to the coastline are distributed by the low to medium exposure in the region of the west and middle of the considered study area. The results of this study can help decision-makers take necessary risk reduction approaches in the high-risk flooding zones of the coastal system. • Coastal areas are facing an increased risk of flooding due to rising sea levels and the impact of climate change. • Floods increased due to unplanned infrastructure and human activities. • The AHP-SVM-DT combination for flood susceptibility mapping is a notable flood management model. • The study uses flood susceptibility mapping to examine Bandar Abbas, Iran, to identify factors impacting coastal flooding. • AHP-DT model achieved AUC 0.95, effectively predicting and classifying coastal flood risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The site selection of biomass energy facilities has always been a key part of energy spatial planning. The site suitability evaluation criteria of the existing studies are not comprehensive. On the other hand, most of the existing studies are to determine the only site, while less research on the multiple-facility planning. The aim of this paper is to identify the most effective number and location for biomass energy facilities. To achieve this objective, the Geographic Information System (GIS) is utilized to perform the following tasks: Generate a site suitability map for potential biomass energy facilities and identify suitable site candidates. The standardization of site suitability evaluation indicators is based on fuzzy logic, and indicator weights are determined based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) evaluation of experts' opinions. 2. Develop planning schemes for biomass energy facilities for various number of proposed facilities, and subsequently determine the optimal scheme using multi-objective fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. The weight of each indicator is again determined using the AHP method. Following the analysis, it was found that in the case study of Fuxin City, the plans of 1 and 40 biomass energy facilities can achieve the lowest cost and the highest energy self-sufficiency level. However, both options have potential drawbacks that must be considered. The plan of 30 energy facilities has the highest comprehensive benefits, corresponding to the 30,919.75 yuan of transport cost (3748 yuan lower than the average transport cost) and 75.49% of energy self-sufficiency (67.21% of the average value). This work maximizes the comprehensive positive impacts in economic, environmental and social aspects. [Display omitted] • Energy and economic evaluation of nine biomass energy facility plans. • Generate optimal planning scheme for a specified number of facilities. • Determination of the optimal number and location of biomass energy facilities. • New indicators for site suitability assessment of biomass energy facility. • GIS framework for bioenergy system planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centralized vs. decentralized sewage treatment is one of the key issues in the planning of rural sewage treatment (RST) in China due to the country's diverse regional characteristics. There are very limited comprehensive evaluation models for selecting regionally suitable schemes and facilities, particularly for national or provisional scale planning. As a scenario-based multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) issue, this paper develops a novel RST suitability evaluation model by integrating the multi-attribute analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS). The suitability evaluation model sets up 3 small-centralized and 4 decentralized RST facilities as candidates and includes 12 evaluation indicators that cover economic cost, life cycle environmental impacts, technical features and operations management. Eight generic scenarios are classified for Chinese rural areas based on differences in three major characteristic factors, i.e., population density (PD), the economic development level (EDL), and topographic slope (TS). The universal evaluation results show that a centralized sewage treatment scheme is more suitable for areas with a high PD/high EDL/low TS, while a decentralized scheme is more suitable for areas with a low PD/low EDL/high TS. Sensitivity analysis shows that in regions with a high PD/low EDL, the indicator weight of the construction investment cost in the model has a great influence on the facility suitability ranking. However, in regions with a high PD/high EDL, the ranking is the most sensitive to the indicator weights of the global warming potential and sewage treatment effect. Furthermore, as a spatial decision issue, an RST suitability map of Hunan Province in China is produced at the county level of resolution, and the map is generally consistent with our field knowledge of several counties in Hunan Province. The presented evaluation framework can be integrated into environmental decision support systems in the future to help local and central governments, water utilities, design institutes and other stakeholders scientifically plan RST projects. [Display omitted] • A new suitability evaluation framework of rural sewage treatment (RST) facilities. • Considering life-cycle environmental impacts and regional differences on a large scale. • Optimal RST facilities for each 8 types of regions in China were selected. • A suitability zoning map of optimal RST facility was produced for Hunan Province. • It can help to develop an environmental decision support system for RST planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2019 Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had a big impact in Italy, mainly concentrated in the northern part of the Country. All this was mainly due to similarities of this area with Wuhan in Hubei Province, according to geographical, environmental and socio-economic points of view. The basic hypothesis of this research was that the presence of atmospheric pollutants can generate stress on health conditions of the population and determine pre-conditions for the development of diseases of the respiratory system and complications related to them. In most cases the attention on environmental aspects is mainly concentrated on pollution, neglecting issues such as land management which, in some way, can contribute to reducing the impact of pollution. The reduction of land take and the decrease in the loss of ecosystem services can represent an important aspect in improving environmental quality. In order to integrate policies for environmental change and human health, the main factors analyzed in this paper can be summarized in environmental, climatic and land management. The main aim of this paper was to produce three different hazard scenarios respectively related to environmental, climatic and land management-related factors. A Spatial Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method has been applied over thirteen informative layers grouped in aggregation classes of environmental, climatic and land management. The results of the health hazard maps show a disparity in the distribution of territorial responses to the pandemic in Italy. The environmental components play an extremely relevant role in the definition of the red zones of hazard, with a consequent urgent need to renew sustainable development strategies. The comparison of hazard maps related to different scenarios provides decision makers with tools to orient policy choices with a different degree of priority according to a place-based approach. In particular, the geospatial representation of risks could be a tool for legitimizing the measures chosen by decision-makers, proposing a renewed approach that highlights and takes account of the differences between the spatial contexts to be considered - Regions, Provinces, Municipalities - also in terms of climatic and environmental variables. • COVID-19 had a big impact in Italy, mainly in the northern part of the Country. • Reduction of land take and ecosystem services' loss improve environmental quality. • Environmental, climatic and land management can be leveraged for pandemic policies. • Geospatial representation of risks is a useful approach to support decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water quality evaluation and health risk assessment are not only the basis of environmental protection work, but also of great significance to water environment supervision and management. In this paper, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation for water quality was improved by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Entropy, and a health risk assessment model based on triangular fuzzy theory was developed. The evaluation results show 5 water categories: Class-1 (n = 1, 2%), Class-2 (n = 14, 32%), Class-3 (n = 15, 34%), Class-4 (n = 8, 18%) and Class-5 (n = 6, 14%), manifesting about 67% of the phreatic water can be used for drinking purposes in the research area. The Chadha diagram provides hydrochemical facies of the phreatic water are mainly NaCl type (n = 16, 36%) and Ca–Mg–Na type (n = 15, 34%). Fluorine as non-carcinogenic factor in health risk assessment, showing moderate correlation with SO 4 2– (r = 0.54) and low correlation with Na+ (r = 0.38) in Pearson correlation analysis. The order of non-carcinogenic risk per year is as follow: Class-2, Class-3, All, Class-4 and Class-5 with the mean of 0.29, 0.51, 0.67, 0.86 and 1.55 × 10–8 for adults, 0.54, 0.95, 1.27, 1.58 and 2.89 × 10–8 for children. Compare with adults, children undertake higher health risk, in research area. Particularly, the region accepting Class-5 water supplement encounter high non-carcinogenic risk, where risk level is 2.24 and 2.28 times to the average risk level for adults and children, respectively. This paper provides insights into solving uncertainties in groundwater management and environmental protection, as well as into fuzzy logic techniques addressing pollution. • Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation for water quality was improved using AHP and Entropy. • Health risk assessment is performed with triangular fuzzy theory. • Hydrochemical processes are interpreted considering different mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract To protect the privacy of users, tables generally must be anonymized before publication. All existing anonymous methods have deficiencies. They do not consider the differences in attributes, or the optimization of information loss and time efficiency. his paper proposes a new method called KACM to realize k-anonymity. This method is mainly used for hybrid tables. The calculation of the distance between records considers the connection between quasi-identifier attributes and sensitive attributes, their effect on the sensitive privacy, and the information loss during the anonymity process. In the clustering process, the records with the minimum distance are always selected to add, and the clustering is individually controlled according to k to realize the equalization division of the equivalence class and reduce the total amount of distance calculation. Finally, the validity and practicability of the method are proved using theory and experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The recent development of metropolitan cities, especially in Europe, requires an effective integrated management of city services, infrastructure, and communication networks at a metropolitan level. A preliminary step towards a proper organizational and management strategy of the metropolitan city is the analysis, benchmarking and optimization of the metropolitan areas through a set of indicators coherent with the overall sustainability objective of the metropolitan city. This paper proposes the use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process multi-criteria decision making technique for application in the smart metropolitan city context, with the aim of analysing the sustainable development of energy, water and environmental systems, through a set of objective performance indicators. Specifically, the 35 indicators defined for the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Index framework are used. The application of the approach to the real case study of four metropolitan areas (Bari, Bitonto, Mola, and Molfetta) in the city of Bari (Italy) shows its usefulness for the local government in benchmarking metropolitan areas and providing decision indications on how to formulate the sustainable development strategy of the metropolitan city. Based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process characteristics, the results highlight that although one specific area (Mola in the considered case) is globally ranked at the first place, it is only ranked first with respect to some dimensions. Such a result has strong implications for the metropolitan city's manager who has the possibility to identify and implement targeted actions, which may be designed ad hoc to improve specific dimensions based on the current state of the city, thus maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the actions undertaken for the sustainable development of energy, water and environmental systems of the whole metropolitan city. Highlights • AHP multi-criteria decision making technique for smart metropolitan city. • Analysis of the sustainable development of energy, water and environmental systems. • Supporting the local government in benchmarking metropolitan areas. • Supporting formulation of the metropolitan city's sustainable development strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past water distribution systems (WDS) management studies derived operation protocols to maximize WDS reliability by using residual chlorine as the sole surrogate parameter for water quality reliability. Albeit the advancement in mechanistic modeling to examine the WDS water quality, emerging water quality parameters of concern are not yet involved in solving WDS management problems. This paper attempts to overcome this limitation by developing a flexible decision-making framework -integrating EPANET-C, a mechanistic modeling tool for WDS water quality, with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi-criteria decision-making method - to rank the possible water quality parameter-based operating alternatives (organic matter and residual chlorine levels at the source points) for WDS. The uncertainty analysis was incorporated into the mechanistic modeling using the Monte Carlo method to realize insufficient knowledge about the complex biological and physicochemical interactions inside WDS. Six cases, each ranking the alternatives diversely, were applied to reflect the expert judgment impressions on the AHP outcomes. The consistency of the proposed decision-making framework was verified by deriving the operation protocol for two test networks by making trade-offs between the multiple and conflicting microbiological, chemical, and organoleptic quality criteria. The disinfection by-products formation control and taste and odor problems control emerged as the most critical water quality criteria determining the WDS performance under the operating alternatives examined. Altogether, the obtained results suggested the practicality of adopting a flexible operation protocol to maintain the water quality benchmarks over various plausible WDS performance scenarios, ranging from worst to best. [Display omitted] • General methodology to derive operation protocols for water distribution systems. • All-inclusive water distribution systems quality modeling considering uncertainty. • Flexible decision-making framework based on analytic hierarchy process. • Chemical and organoleptic quality criteria control the hierarchization process. • Flexible operation protocol minimizes contamination risks during operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem based management requires the integration of various types of assessment indicators. Understanding stakeholders' information preferences is important, in selecting those indicators that best support management and policy. Both the preferences of decision-makers and the general public may matter, in democratic participatory management institutions. This paper presents a multi-criteria analysis aimed at quantifying the relative importance to these groups of economic, ecological and socio-economic indicators usually considered when managing ecosystem services in a coastal development context. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is applied within two nationwide surveys in Australia, and preferences of both the general public and decision-makers for these indicators are elicited and compared. Results show that, on average across both groups, the priority in assessing a generic coastal development project is for the ecological assessment of its impacts on marine biodiversity. Ecological assessment indicators are globally preferred to both economic and socio-economic indicators regardless of the nature of the impacts studied. These results are observed for a significantly larger proportion of decision-maker than general public respondents, questioning the extent to which the general public's preferences are well reflected in decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing can provide elastic and dynamic resources on demand, which facilitates service providers to make profits resulting from the long tail effect. It becomes vitally important to ensure that cloud services can be acceptable to more potential users. However, it is challenging for potential users to discover the trustworthy cloud services due to the deficiency of usage experiences and the information overload of QoE (quality of experience) evaluations from consumers. This paper presents a user feature-aware trustworthiness measurement approach for potential users. In this approach, the influence factors of QoE are systematically analyzed based on the user feature model and the quantitative computation methods are designed to measure the user feature similarity. In addition, employing FAHP (fuzzy analytic hierarchy process) method identifies the user feature community. To enhance the accuracy of trustworthiness measurement, the false evidences in QoE evaluations are iteratively filtered out with dynamic mean distance threshold. Finally, the trustworthiness of service is measured via evidence synthesis combining user feature similarity. The experiments show that this approach is effective to improve the quality of trustworthiness measurement, which is helpful to solve information overload problem and cold start problem of trusted service recommendation for potential users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider a natural map from the Kähler cone of a compact Kähler manifold to its balanced cone. We study its injectivity and surjectivity. We also give an analytic characterization theorem on a nef class being Kähler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses environmental and economic performance of thermal utilization technologies of two different refuse derived fuel (RDF) manufactured from landfilled waste or fresh municipal waste, including incineration of landfilled RDF (I-LRDF), gasification of landfilled RDF (G-LRDF), replacement of partial coal by landfilled RDF for the cement industry (C-LRDF), incineration of municipal RDF (I-MRDF), and replacement of partial coal by municipal RDF for the cement industry (C-MRDF). The preference among the RDF utilization options is identified from the standpoints of various stakeholders by integrating the life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approaches. RDF thermal utilization technologies bring an economic profit of $17.29∼$35.77 per ton of waste. Especially, I-LRDF has the worst effect on ecosystem quality and human health and can yield the greatest economic profit of $35.77 per ton of landfilled waste, while I-MRDF has the least impact on environment. In terms of the five RDF thermal utilization technologies, I-MRDF has the best comprehensive performance from the perspectives of different stakeholders. The improvement of the RDF thermal utilization efficiency is the most critical factor affecting the economic benefits for all cases. • Comparisons of RDFs manufactured from landfilled and fresh waste are novel. • LCA, TEA and MCDM of RDF thermal utilization technologies are studied. • I-MRDF has the best comprehensive performance in terms of five cases. • RDF thermal utilization brings an economic profit of $17.29∼$35.77/ton-waste. • This work helps guide the application of RDF thermal utilization technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a special ecosystem in cities, urban wetland parks have important environmental regulation and social service functions. This paper proposes a new methodology of urban wetland planning and management based on the vulnerability of the ecological environment. The Jixi National Wetland Park (JNWP) was taken as the research area to analyze the ecological, geological and environmental factors that affect urban wetlands. A remote sensing image, digital elevation model, and environmental quality interpolation processing were used to generate the factor layer, and a comprehensive evaluation index system was established. The fuzzy Delphi analytic hierarchy process (FDAHP) method was used to calculate the comprehensive weight of each evaluation factor. A model to evaluate the ecological environment vulnerability of the JNWP was established. Then, an improved k-means clustering algorithm was used to classify the ecological environment of the study area. The ecological environment vulnerability of the wetland was evaluated. The results showed that the vulnerability of the ecological environment in the study area could be divided into five levels, including very low, low, medium, high and very high vulnerability areas. According to the vulnerability level and the results of k-means++ cluster analysis, the JNWP is divided into five areas. The wetland buffer zone is the main factor that determines the distribution of ecological environment vulnerability in urban wetlands. However, cultivated land development and ecological environmental restoration are the main factors that determine the evolution of ecological environment vulnerability in urban wetlands. The FDAHP and geographic information systems (GIS), combined with cluster analysis, are effective methods to evaluate the vulnerability of the ecological environment of urban wetlands, which provides a scientific and accurate methodology for the management and sustainable development of urban wetlands. [Display omitted] • A new methodology was developed to quantify the vulnerability of urban wetlands. • Multi-sources data were used to extract vulnerability factors. • The vulnerability assessment considers ecological, geological and environmental aspects. • Urban planning affects vulnerability more than geological conditions and natural environment. • Different vulnerable areas and ecological environment types have different planning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Kriging interpolation, analytic hierarchy process and grey relational analysis, this paper evaluates the regionalized benefit of China's sloping cropland erosion control (SCEC) during 2011–2015, including the ecological, economic, social benefit and the comprehensive benefit. The results show that, in the ecological benefits, the distribution of soil erosion control degree presents patchy characteristics. The reduction of runoff modulus gradually decreases from southeast to northwest. The reduction of soil erosion modulus is the largest in the Northwest Loess Plateau and the smallest in the Northeast Black Soil Zone. In the economic benefits, the increase in the annual output value per unit land area is characterized by "high in the south and low in the north", but there are patchy high-value areas in central Loess Plateau and the Northern Earthy-Rocky Mountain Zone. The increase in the agricultural population's per capita income is higher in the western area than that in the eastern area. In the social benefits, the per capita grain increase in most of the northern China is larger than that in the south, while the characteristic agricultural development in the south is more advantageous than that in the north. The comprehensive benefit is "high in the south and low in the north; highest in the southwest and lowest in the northeast". The spatial heterogeneity implies the necessity to specify the influencing factors for the SCEC benefit in different areas and take pointed measures to improve the benefit. • The regionalized benefit of China's sloping cropland erosion control during 2011–2015 is evaluated. • The project-level benefits with nine indicators are expanded to regional level with Kriging interpolation. • The ecological and social benefits have stronger spatial autocorrelation than economic benefits. • The comprehensive benefit is "high in the south and low in the north; highest in the southwest and lowest in the northeast". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brick manufacturing is an important industry which produces some fundamental building materials. Since brick production industries have environmental adverse effects such as air pollution, excessive energy consumption as well as waste production, they have become more challenging to manage as they face increasing pressure to improve economic performance and the green and clean production concerns. Concerning these issues and taking into account the current state of the literature in this area, this paper, proposes a hybrid hierarchical fuzzy multiple-criteria group decision making (HH-FMCGDM) model based on a modified fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (MFAHP) to evaluate and rank the related alternative technologies based on various criteria including economic, environmental, market related, technical advantages, and so on. In the proposed method MFAHP is utilized to determine the weights of the criteria. Also, a new method is presented to assign a weight factor for each decision maker (DM) in the group decision-making process. Also, we propose a fuzzy extended version of TOPSIS method as an evaluation tool to calculate the local priority of candidates of brick manufacturing technologies. Afterward, in order to avoid the data loss of DMs' judgments, the final rank of alternatives are obtained based on the proposed last aggregation approach. To illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach, a real-life case study in a brick industry is done based on our approach. Then, a sensitivity analysis is done to assess the robustness and sensitiveness of the obtained results from the proposed approach. Finally, some managerial insights are suggested to increase the applicability of the proposed HH-FMCGDM approach for real cases. • Proposing a hybrid hierarchical fuzzy multiple-criteria group decision making (HH-FMCGDM) model for technology assessment. • Computing the criteria weights according to the modified fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (MFAHP). • Determining weights of the experts' opinions based on the proposed fuzzy utility degree method. • Extending the proposed approach based on the last aggregation concept to prevent the loss of information. • Considering a real case study to represent the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]