Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engappai

Alternatives selection for produced water management: A network-based

methodology✩
Shengzhong Mao a , Yong Deng a ,∗, Danilo Pelusi b
a Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Science, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China
b
Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Teramo, Teramo, I-64100, Italy

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Products and process strategies selection has attracted much attention, especially for produced water man-
Produced water management agement. In order to select best alternatives, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive decision-making
Visibility graph methodology applicable to complex and uncertain systems. In this paper, we propose a new network-based
Decision making
methodology of decision-making. Firstly, the discrete quantitative and qualitative input data are mapped into
Power average operator
networks based on ordered visibility graph. Then we take advantages of network topologies, which are node
Complex networks
degree and node distance, to establish the relationships among the input data. Finally, the data are aggregated
into a single value to make a decision. The case study indicates that our method is advantageous to make
decisions objectively while inheriting the characteristics of network structures.

1. Introduction
Green products design (Liu et al., 2018) and renewable energy
management (Zhang and Xu, 2019; Tsai, 2016) are two vital topics in
environment protection and ecological safety. Selecting and designing
proper strategies for green process has aroused great concerns and
studies, especially in ecology assessment (Gandhi et al., 2018), risk
analysis and perception (Danforth et al., 2019; Torres et al., 2017),
and produced water management (Hu et al., 2018; Zemlick et al.,
2018). However, it is sometimes not easy to make reasonable decisions
in the real world (Scholl et al., 2018). In a system, various factors
interact with each other, increasing its complexity and uncertainty (Liu
and Zhang, 2019; Gao et al., 2019). In addition, since these different
elements often belong to different kinds of fields, how to deal with
their massive data is also an unsolved problem. For instance, there
are four fundamental indexes in produced water management, which
are feasible technique, cost index, damages to the environment, and
treatment effect (Sadiq et al., 2005). All the indicators are different
in their attributes and units, leading to a great deal of inconvenience
when building the connections among different indicators (Zhang et al.,
2013). Therefore, under the influence of various indexes, how to make
a decision for water management is still an open question (Bereskie
et al., 2018).
Researchers have done a lot of work handling decision-making
problems. In the early stage, Cano-Ruiz and McRae fully reviewed
the technologies of process design, where environment factors were
taken into account to make decisions (Cano-Ruiz and McRae, 1998).
However, at the time the methodologies were mostly dealing with
one object and less effective when handling multiple factors (Zhou
et al., 2018). Based on life cycle assessment technology, Azapagic and
Clift studied a great many process selections to direct decision-making
issues (Azapagic and Clift, 1998, 1999). Fu et al. also proposed a multi-
objective framework under uncertainty to evaluate options in designing
process (Fu et al., 2000). Besides, the entropy function (Wen and Deng,
2020b) and evidence theory (Li and Wei, 2019) are widely used to
handle with uncertainty in decision-making. Furthermore, in order to
solve the impact of large amounts of data when making decisions, many
data aggregation methodologies were presented. The ordered weighted
averaging (OWA) operator, which was proposed by Yager, is effective
to fuse data under uncertainty (Yager, 1988; Yusoff et al., 2018).
Afterwards, scientists studied the determination of weights for OWA
operator using maximum entropy methodology (Fullér and Majlender,
2001) and fuzzy theory (Sadiq and Tesfamariam, 2008). In addition
to these traditional data processing methods, many methods of data
aggregation have been proposed by researchers based on network
theories. For example, Jiang et al. conducted a research on power
average (P-A) operator (Yager, 2001) to aggregate financial values
by network structures (Jiang et al., 2016). Besides, Xu et al. utilized
visibility graph method (Lacasa et al., 2012) for data aggregation and
finally established a weighted network (Xu et al., 2018).
Although these methods helped a lot in decision-making and data
aggregation, they still have some limitations. For example, although

✩ No author associated with this paper has disclosed any potential or pertinent conflicts which may be perceived to have impending conflict with this work.
For full disclosure statements refer to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2020.103556.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dengentropy@uestc.edu.cn (Y. Deng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engappai.2020.103556
Received 12 August 2019; Received in revised form 6 February 2020; Accepted 10 February 2020
Available online xxxx
0952-1976/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi
Fig. 1. Example of time series data and visibility graph: The time series data (7 data values) are mapped into graphs. The visibility graph contains the nodes corresponding to
time series data, and the edges between nodes.
Fig. 2. The ordered data are plotted in by vertical bars and transformed into OVG.
Fu et al.’s method succeeded in multi-attribute decision-making, how
to address massive amounts of data remained unsettled. Besides, the
OWA and P-A operators are able to fuse data effectively but the weight
determination method varies a lot and it is still open question (Song
and Deng, 2019). Each time an artificial parameter is necessary when
data values are aggregated by OWA operator (Fullér and Majlender,
2001), resulting in subjectivity and complexity. The network-based
aggregation technology, like ordered visibility graph average (OVGA)
aggregation operator (Jiang et al., 2017), takes aggregation process
only by node distance parameter in the network, which may cause
information loss and not take effect in other complex situations. There-
fore, it is urgent to develop a comprehensive decision-making method
applicable to different cases where a mass of data is involved.
Complex network has been studied for a long time, which has
the advantages of establishing relations in complex systems (Liang
et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018b). Scientists studied network theories
in depth and applied them in spatial cooperation (Li et al., 2019),
resolving social dilemmas (Liu et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2018a), and
influential nodes identification (Wen and Deng, 2020a; Zhao et al.,
2020b), which are all received good performance. A novel topic, called
visibility graph, is a hot topic in recent years. The visibility graph
(VG) was proposed by Lacasa et al. to map data values in time order
into graphs (Lacasa et al., 2008). Once this theory was put forward, it
was widely studied and applied to signal detection (Cai et al., 2019;
Gao et al., 2017), temporal irreversibility (Xiong et al., 2019b), and
time series analysis (Liu and Deng, 2019; Czechowski et al., 2016;
Zhao et al., 2020a). It should point out that the order information and
network structure are reserved in the transformation process. In this
2
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556
case, the sequence data are converted into network and we can take
advantage of topology of networks to establish the relationships among
different factors and deal with massive data.
Inspired by previous work, this paper presents a new method of al-
ternatives selection for water management by network theory analysis.
Firstly, the discrete quantitative/qualitative input data values of each
indicator are transformed into ordered visibility graphs. On the basis of
considering node distance and node degree, a support function based
on network structure is proposed to determine the weight distribution
among data. The case study shows the most appropriate alternative is
down hole separation in the evaluation process of water management.
The proposed method is advantageous to make decisions objectively
and retain more aggregation information.
We organize this paper as the following parts. Section 2 is the in-
troduction of visibility graph theory and support function. In Section 3,
the method proposed in this paper is introduced in detail. Section 4 is
the case study of water management and Section 5 is the conclusion of
this paper.
2. Preliminaries
2.1. The visibility graph
The visibility graph (VG) methodology, proposed by Lacasa et al.
(2008), is a network approach to transform time series data into
graphs (Li et al., 2016). The visibility graph preserves the information
of data in its network topology (Lacasa and Just, 2018) and its limited
penetrability is also an crucial property (Wang et al., 2018c; Li et al.,
2018). The visibility algorithm is defined as follows.
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556

Table 1
14 best available technologies for produced water.
Technologies Alternatives
Physical separation technologies
Floatation 𝐴1
Sparging 𝐴2
Coalescence 𝐴3
Enhanced separation technologies
Hydrocyclones 𝐴4
PECT-F and/or Mare’s Tail 𝐴5
Centrifuges 𝐴6
Polishing technologies
MPPE 𝐴7
Adsorption 𝐴8
C-Tour 𝐴9
Membranes 𝐴10
Steam stripping 𝐴11
Biological 𝐴12
Produced water re-injection 𝐴13
Down hole separation 𝐴14

Definition 2.1. (𝑡𝑘 , 𝑥𝑘 ) is a set of time series data, which is located

between (𝑡𝑖 , 𝑥𝑖 ) and (𝑡𝑗 , 𝑥𝑗 ). The two sequential data are visible if (𝑡𝑘 , 𝑥𝑘 )
satisfies (Lacasa et al., 2008):
𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗 𝑥 − 𝑥𝑘
> 𝑖 . (1)
𝑡𝑖 − 𝑡𝑗 𝑡𝑖 − 𝑡𝑘
Fig. 1 describes the visibility algorithm more vividly. As can be seen,
a bar is linked if it can be seen by other bars in the histogram. The
right part of the diagram is the visibility graph, showing the nodes
corresponding to time series data, and the edges between nodes.
For example, (𝑡1 , 𝑥1 ) and (𝑡3 , 𝑥3 ) are visible, while (𝑡1 , 𝑥1 ) and (𝑡4 , 𝑥4 )
are invisible as they are blocked by (𝑡3 , 𝑥3 ). The visibility graph has the
following properties: Fig. 3. The evaluation indexes of each alternative.

(1) Connective: Adjacent nodes are directly connected.

(2) Non-directional: The links between two nodes are Non-
3. The proposed method
directional.
(3) Invariant: The relationships among nodes are invariant by scal-
In this section, inspired by the visibility graph and support function,
ing of the histogram.
we proposed a new method to determine the supports for data. Then
2.2. The support function an example is provided for illustrative purpose.

The support function is used in the power average (P-A) operator 3.1. The ordered visibility graph
to determine the supports for data (Yager, 2001). Due to the efficiency
of P-A operator in data aggregation (Liu and Teng, 2018; Jiang et al., In Section 2.1, the VG method maps time series data into graphs,
2015), it has been widely used in decision-making (Song et al., 2017; which means the values are in time order. However, not all datasets
Liu and Liu, 2018; Xiong et al., 2019a). The power average operator are chronological in real life, like weight and height datasets. In order
and the support function are defined as follows. to eliminate the influence of time factor, the original data are sorted
first, and then they are mapped into an ordered visibility graph (OVG).
Definition 2.2. The P-A operator is applied in data aggregation, and
it is defined by Yager (2001) Definition 3.1. 𝑂 = {𝑜1 , 𝑜2 , … , 𝑜𝑛 } is a set of ordered data, where 𝑜𝑖
∑𝑛
(𝐹 (𝑥𝑖 ) + 1)𝑥𝑖 is the ith largest data in 𝑂. Similarly, the OVG algorithm is defined as
𝑃 − 𝐴(𝑥1 , 𝑥2 , … , 𝑥𝑛 ) = ∑𝑖=1
𝑛 , if (𝑘, 𝑜𝑘 ) is a set of ordered data, which is located between (𝑖, 𝑜𝑖 ) and
𝑖=1 (𝐹 (𝑥𝑖 ) + 1)
(2) (𝑗, 𝑜𝑗 ), then the two ordered data are visible if (𝑘, 𝑜𝑘 ) satisfies:
∑𝑛
𝐹 (𝑥𝑖 ) = 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) 𝑜𝑖 − 𝑜𝑗 𝑜𝑖 − 𝑜𝑘
𝑗=1,𝑗≠𝑖 > . (3)
𝑖−𝑗 𝑖−𝑘
where 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) means the support of 𝑥𝑖 from 𝑥𝑗 , and 𝐹 (𝑥𝑖 ) denotes
The OVG criteria is set by the order of data as well as numerical
all the argument values’ supports for 𝑥𝑖 .
values, which is supposed to inherit more information when mapping
As can be seen, the support function, i.e. 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) is such a data into graphs. Likewise, the OVG has the following properties:
significant element when aggregating data are aggregated. However, connective, non-directional, and invariant.
how to determine the support function is still an open question. The
properties of support function are as follows: 3.2. Determination of support function
(1) 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) ∈ [0, 1];
In Section 3.1, the ordered data are transformed into network. In
(2) 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) = 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑗 , 𝑥𝑖 );
| | this section, the support function is determined based on the following
(3) 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) ≥ 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑎 , 𝑥𝑏 ) if |𝑥𝑖 − 𝑥𝑗 | < ||𝑥𝑎 − 𝑥𝑏 ||.
| | two crucial characteristics of the network structure:

3
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556

Table 2
The discrete quantitative/qualitative input data value of each indicator.
Environmental indicators(EnI) Technical feasibility(TFI)
Alternatives
RD GW AP CT SM EO EF ST CM
𝐴1 0.03 0.10 0.15 0.30 0.20 0.80 0.85 1.00 0.40
𝐴2 0.35 0.15 0.20 0.20 0.20 0.80 0.90 1.00 0.50
𝐴3 0.40 0.20 0.20 0.30 0.30 0.70 0.90 0.80 0.40
𝐴4 0.55 0.15 0.30 0.35 0.25 0.90 0.95 1.00 0.80
𝐴5 0.60 0.20 0.30 0.35 0.30 0.80 0.95 0.75 0.60
𝐴6 0.45 0.20 0.20 0.15 0.20 0.80 0.95 1.00 0.70
𝐴7 0.70 0.40 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.60 0.90 0.60 0.30
𝐴8 0.60 0.35 0.40 0.35 0.50 0.60 0.90 0.60 0.30
𝐴9 0.80 0.60 0.55 0.50 0.30 0.70 0.90 0.50 0.40
𝐴10 0.70 0.50 0.30 0.40 0.80 0.60 0.90 0.50 0.30
𝐴11 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.30 0.70 0.90 0.50 0.20
𝐴12 0.30 0.35 0.30 0.20 1.00 0.90 0.90 0.60 0.10
𝐴13 0.90 0.60 0.45 0.30 0.15 0.90 0.95 0.90 0.80
𝐴14 0.85 0.60 0.30 0.35 0.15 0.90 0.90 0.70 0.90
Treatment efficiency indicators(TI) Cost indicators(CI)
Alternatives
DO BTEX NPD PAH HM NORM WC OM CC
𝐴1 0.60 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30
𝐴2 0.60 0.00 0.00 0.30 0.00 0.00 0.10 0.25 0.35
𝐴3 0.70 0.00 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.00 0.15 0.15 0.30
𝐴4 0.90 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.20 0.25
𝐴5 0.95 0.00 0.00 0.70 0.00 0.00 0.25 0.20 0.30
𝐴6 0.95 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.20 0.35
𝐴7 0.90 0.90 0.70 0.90 0.30 0.30 0.15 0.35 0.40
𝐴8 0.95 0.95 0.70 0.80 0.10 0.10 0.15 0.40 0.50
𝐴9 0.95 0.30 0.80 0.90 0.50 0.60 0.20 0.35 0.50
𝐴10 0.95 0.90 0.80 0.90 0.60 0.70 0.15 0.35 0.50
𝐴11 0.60 0.95 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.30 0.40 0.60
𝐴12 0.90 0.95 0.60 0.70 0.40 0.10 0.10 0.20 0.50
𝐴13 0.90 0.90 0.80 0.80 0.50 0.50 0.25 0.20 0.60
𝐴14 0.90 0.95 0.80 0.90 0.60 0.50 0.20 0.60 0.70

(1) Node degree: In the graph theory, node degree refers to the number Example 3.1. 𝑂 = {75, 65, 60, 60, 40, 35, 30} is a set of ordered data. The
of edges associated with the node. The more edges connected to a data are plotted in a histogram and transformed into OVG, as shown in
node, the more important that node is as it carries more network Fig. 2.
information. For example, in Fig. 1, there are two points connected As for node (1, 75), it is associated to (2, 65), (3, 60), and (4, 60),
to node (𝑡1 , 𝑥1 ) directly while five nodes are connected to node and the degrees of these three points are 3, 3, and 6, respectively. By
(𝑡3 , 𝑥3 ). Therefore, the degree of node (𝑡1 , 𝑥1 ) and node (𝑡3 , 𝑥3 ) are Eqs. (4) and (5), the total supports of node (1, 75) is calculated by
2 and 5, which implies node (𝑡3 , 𝑥3 ) is more important than node 𝑘2 𝑘 𝑘 3 3 6
(𝑡1 , 𝑥1 ) in this network. 𝐹 (𝑥1 ) = + 3 + 4 = + + = 6.5.
𝑑12 𝑑13 𝑑14 1 2 3
(2) Node distance: In the method of Yager (2001), the closer the
argument values are, the higher the support among them. Simi- Likewise, the total support of each node in set 𝑂 can be obtained.
larly, in Fig. 1, the closer the two connected vertical bars are, the Then the aggregated result of set 𝑂, denoted by Agg, can be obtained
higher they support each other. In the network structure, the node by Eq. (2).
distance is a crucial factor to reflect the interrelationship between 𝐴𝑔𝑔(75, 65, … , 30)
two nodes. In the visibility graph, the node distance is defined as 75 × (1 + 6.5) + 65 × (1 + 9) + ⋯ + 30 × (1 + 5)
𝑑 = |𝑡𝑛 − 𝑡𝑚 |. For instance, the distance between node (𝑡1 , 𝑥1 ) and = = 53.44.
(1 + 6.5 + 1 + 9 + ⋯ + 1 + 5)
node (𝑡3 , 𝑥3 ) is equal to 2.

It can be seen that in the network structure, the higher the degree
Algorithm 1 The proposed network methodology
of two nodes and the closer the distance between them, then the higher
support between them. Based on the mentioned considerations, the Input: The ordered dataset 𝑂
support function, i.e. 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) is defined as follows and Algorithm Output: The aggregate value 𝐴𝑔𝑔(𝑂)
1 illustrates the proposed method in a more vivid way. 1: OVG algorithm: From ordered data to ordered visibility graph
2: for ∀ pair of connected nodes (𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) do
Definition 3.2. In the ordered visibility graph, if 𝑥𝑖 is connected to 𝑥𝑗 , 3: Support function 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) = 𝑘𝑖 /𝑑𝑖𝑗
4: Determine the supports of node 𝑥𝑖
the support of 𝑥𝑖 from 𝑥𝑗 , denoted by 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ), is defined by
5: end for
𝑘𝑗 6: Aggregated results 𝐴𝑔𝑔(𝑂)
𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ) = . (4)
𝑑𝑖𝑗
where 𝑘𝑗 is the degree of node 𝑥𝑗 , and 𝑑𝑖𝑗 denotes the distance between
𝑥𝑖 and 𝑥𝑗 . 𝐹 (𝑥𝑖 ) denotes all the argument values’ supports for 𝑥𝑖 and it
is determined by 4. Case study

∑
𝑛
𝐹 (𝑥𝑖 ) = 𝑆𝑢𝑝(𝑥𝑖 , 𝑥𝑗 ). (5) In this section, the proposed method is applied to select appropriate
𝑗=1,𝑗≠𝑖 alternatives for produced water management.

4
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556

Fig. 4. The ordered visibility graph of 𝐴1 .

Fig. 5. Aggregated results obtained by different methods.

4.1. Application in water management
Green products, processes, and waste management policies are es-
sential to environmental conservation as well as sustainable develop-
ment. There is a mass of data to be processed when choosing and
designing green crafts and products (Sadiq et al., 2005). The proposed
method is effective to aggregate varieties of influence factors to select
appropriate alternatives under uncertainty.
Table 1 presents 14 best available technologies (BAT) for treating
produced water. Fig. 3 shows four primary indicators for evaluation
of the technologies, which are environment, treatment, technical fea-
sibility, and cost. Specifically, environmental indicators (EnI) include
resource depletion (RD), global warming (GW), air pollution (AP),
critical water mass (CT), and solid waste mass (SM). The indexes of ease
of operation (EO), efficiency (EF), status of technology (ST) and control
measures (CM) are included in technical feasibility indicators (TFI). The
cost indicators (CI) are working capital (WC), operation & maintenance
(OM), and capital cost (CC). Treatment indicators (TI) contain dissolved
oil (DO), benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene (BTEX), Poly-
cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), naphthalene, phenanthrene, and
dibenzothiophene (NPD), heavy metal (HM), and naturally occurring
radioactive material (NORM). Table 2 lists the input data value of each
indicator (Sadiq et al., 2005).

5
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556

Table 3
The weights of each indicator for different alternatives.
𝑤1 𝑤2 𝑤3 𝑤4 𝑤5 𝑤6 𝑤7 𝑤8 𝑤9 𝑤10 𝑤11 𝑤12 𝑤13 𝑤14 𝑤15 𝑤16 𝑤17 𝑤18
𝐴1 0.0320 0.0524 0.0720 0.0764 0.0712 0.0596 0.0560 0.0359 0.0510 0.0643 0.0569 0.0560 0.0665 0.0555 0.0455 0.0523 0.0564 0.0402
𝐴2 0.0362 0.0625 0.0749 0.0718 0.0661 0.0364 0.0525 0.0623 0.0656 0.0543 0.0705 0.0738 0.0585 0.0537 0.0306 0.0384 0.0525 0.0394
𝐴3 0.0454 0.0659 0.0666 0.0652 0.0629 0.0536 0.0542 0.0370 0.0558 0.0628 0.0518 0.0642 0.0670 0.0669 0.0481 0.0462 0.0499 0.0366
𝐴4 0.0261 0.0354 0.0457 0.0650 0.0787 0.0679 0.0697 0.0580 0.0597 0.0566 0.0718 0.0697 0.0745 0.0604 0.0325 0.0369 0.0517 0.0397
𝐴5 0.0334 0.0457 0.0604 0.0607 0.0601 0.0669 0.0739 0.0768 0.0576 0.0570 0.0616 0.0635 0.0628 0.0620 0.0483 0.0390 0.0409 0.0295
𝐴6 0.0236 0.0397 0.0701 0.0796 0.0858 0.0598 0.0748 0.0699 0.0397 0.0565 0.0616 0.0647 0.0666 0.0552 0.0298 0.0347 0.0491 0.0387
𝐴7 0.0096 0.0128 0.0478 0.0528 0.0638 0.0600 0.0670 0.0743 0.0626 0.0383 0.0629 0.0819 0.0749 0.0628 0.0706 0.0763 0.0530 0.0287
𝐴8 0.0119 0.0437 0.0663 0.0856 0.0669 0.0557 0.0712 0.0708 0.0596 0.0631 0.0557 0.0596 0.0593 0.0658 0.0567 0.0418 0.0378 0.0285
𝐴9 0.0201 0.0302 0.0428 0.0570 0.0710 0.0714 0.0637 0.0740 0.0715 0.0503 0.0644 0.0800 0.0744 0.0626 0.0553 0.0514 0.0397 0.0201
𝐴10 0.0274 0.0311 0.0423 0.0512 0.0578 0.0599 0.0578 0.0592 0.0534 0.0634 0.0489 0.0719 0.0807 0.0786 0.0712 0.0667 0.0515 0.0267
𝐴11 0.0136 0.0181 0.0271 0.0452 0.0633 0.0671 0.0769 0.0678 0.0746 0.0720 0.0588 0.0618 0.0793 0.0708 0.0407 0.0475 0.0659 0.0496
𝐴12 0.0319 0.0412 0.0316 0.0585 0.0628 0.0633 0.0589 0.0731 0.0791 0.0604 0.0719 0.0719 0.0695 0.0518 0.0519 0.0403 0.0437 0.0384
𝐴13 0.0400 0.0496 0.0469 0.0478 0.0565 0.0597 0.0496 0.0689 0.0709 0.0662 0.0634 0.0625 0.0758 0.0629 0.0551 0.0496 0.0441 0.0303
𝐴14 0.0364 0.0452 0.0427 0.0435 0.0514 0.0602 0.0661 0.0672 0.0602 0.0619 0.0502 0.0703 0.0747 0.0703 0.0502 0.0527 0.0535 0.0434

Table 4
The comparison of aggregation results by different methods.
Fullér and Majlender (2001) Wang et al. (2015) Proposed method
𝛼 = 0.1 Order 𝛼 = 0.4 Order 𝛼 = 0.5 Order 𝛼 = 0.6 Order 𝛼 = 0.9 Order Results Order Results Order
𝐴1 0.0161 14 0.2035 14 0.2906 14 0.3885 14 0.7893 13 0.3215 14 0.2958 14
𝐴2 0.0261 13 0.238 13 0.3278 12 0.4263 12 0.8122 12 0.3769 11 0.3486 12
𝐴3 0.0303 11 0.2438 12 0.3278 13 0.4173 13 0.7447 14 0.3762 12 0.3441 13
𝐴4 0.0269 12 0.2582 11 0.3556 11 0.4607 11 0.8357 11 0.3606 13 0.4027 11
𝐴5 0.039 9 0.3027 9 0.4028 9 0.507 9 0.8483 10 0.4294 9 0.4161 9
𝐴6 0.0315 10 0.2774 10 0.3806 10 0.492 10 0.8843 6 0.4042 10 0.4058 10
𝐴7 0.2557 4 0.4579 5 0.5333 5 0.6118 6 0.8579 9 0.5165 6 0.4959 7
𝐴8 0.1722 6 0.4285 6 0.5139 7 0.6004 8 0.8756 7 0.5346 5 0.5277 5
𝐴9 0.2952 1 0.5048 4 0.575 4 0.6465 4 0.875 8 0.5817 4 0.5695 4
𝐴10 0.2788 2 0.5254 3 0.6028 3 0.6789 3 0.8927 5 0.6014 3 0.581 3
𝐴11 0.0509 8 0.4023 8 0.525 6 0.6462 5 0.9672 1 0.4743 8 0.4798 8
𝐴12 0.1415 7 0.4059 7 0.5056 8 0.6078 7 0.9175 2 0.512 7 0.4963 6
𝐴13 0.2499 5 0.5459 2 0.6333 2 0.7152 2 0.9082 4 0.6581 2 0.6416 2
𝐴14 0.2712 3 0.5725 1 0.6556 1 0.7322 1 0.9095 3 0.6588 1 0.6515 1

Fig. 6. Aggregated results obtained by Fuller & Majlender’s method. When 𝛼 = 0.4, 𝛼 = 0.5, and 𝛼 = 0.6, the trends of change are similar. However, the results vary a lot when 𝛼
takes extreme values like 0.1 and 0.9.

Take 𝐴1 as an example, we can get its OVG, shown in Fig. 4 by
Eq. (3). Then we calculate the support of each indicator as well as
their weight distribution of 𝐴1 by Eqs. (4) and (5). Finally, we get the
aggregated result of 𝐴1 , which is calculated by Eq. (2). By taking the
same operation, we can get all the OVGs of other alternatives, and their
weight distributions are shown in Table 3.
4.2. Comparison and analysis
Table 4 lists the aggregation results obtained by the proposed
method, together with other two methods proposed by Fullér and
Majlender (2001) and Wang et al. (2015). As can be seen, the most
appropriate alternative is 𝐴14 , i.e. down hole separation, in the evalu-
ation as it ranks 1st. The results of aggregation by three methods are
plotted in Fig. 5.
Firstly, we compare our method with Fuller & Majlender’s method.
As shown in Fig. 6, the final results obtained by Fuller & Majlender’s
method are different when 𝛼 changes. The curves vary a lot, especially
when the value of 𝛼 is taken extreme values like 0.1 or 0.9. It is because
𝛼 is a parameter, which is set artificially according to the experience
of experts. Therefore, the aggregate results are subjective, leading to
the loss of objectivity when making decisions. Besides, whenever we
conduct an experiment, we need to set the parameters artificially,
which adds levels of complexity. More importantly, it is hard to find out
the most appropriate parameter values under different experimental
conditions. So it is necessary to develop an aggregation method that
removes subjective factors. In terms of this view, the proposed method
is more objective as it aims to build the relationships among data by

6
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi
Fig. 7. The details of the aggregated results obtained by three methods (𝛼 = 0.5). The curve of the proposed method (red curve) is between Fuller & Majlender’s method (𝛼 = 0.5)
and Wang et al.’s method (see in the square boxes). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
their supports. Moreover, it is more efficient because it is fully data-
driven without setting parameters every time, preserving the objectivity
of the original data.
Besides, we compare our method with Wang et al.’s method, which
is also based on network theories. As shown in Fig. 7, the curve of the
proposed method (red curve) is between Fuller & Majlender’s method
(𝛼 = 0.5) and Wang et al.’s method (the square boxes in Fig. 7). The
top three proper alternatives (𝐴14 , 𝐴13 , and 𝐴10 ) are the same by the
three methods. In addition, the trend of three curves is consistent, indi-
cating our method is feasible to aggregate results and make the correct
assessment when selecting alternatives. It should be pointed out that
although Wang et al. also adopted network method to make decisions,
they only consider the degree of nodes in the network to determine the
weights of data, which may cause information loss when aggregating
values. Our approach not only considers the degree of nodes, but also
takes the effect of node distance into account. Therefore, the proposed
method not only can get accurate results, but also effectively retains
more data and network structure features.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we proposed a novel method to select the most
appropriate alternatives based on network structures. The method first
sorts the input data and then map them into ordered visibility graphs.
By taking the node distance and node degree into consideration, we
proposed a network-based methodology to determine the support func-
tion. In the case study, 𝐴14 , i.e. down hole separation is selected as the
most appropriate alternative for produced water management.
The advantages of the proposed method are as follows. On one
hand, the method explores the relationships among input data to
determine the support function, so it is fully data-driven and no ar-
tificial parameters are required for decision-making, which can avoid
subjectivity and randomness. On the other hand, it considers the factors
of node degree and node distance in the network to obtain reasonable
results as well as retaining more original information and network
features, which is conducive to further researches in decision-making.
In summary, the proposed network operator is a general method for
data aggregation because it removes subjectivity as well as conserving
more network structures. In the future, we will continue to improve our
method in handling larger amounts of data and explore its theoretical
and practical applications in data aggregation for complex systems such
as finance, health and industry.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Shengzhong Mao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, In-
vestigation, Writing - original draft. Yong Deng: Resources, Writing
- review & editing, Supervision. Danilo Pelusi: Resources, Writing -
review & editing.
7
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556
Acknowledgment
The work is partially supported by National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (Grant No. 61973332).
References
Azapagic, A., Clift, R., 1998. Linear programming as a tool in life cycle assessment.
Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 3 (6), 305–316.
Azapagic, A., Clift, R., 1999. Life cycle assessment as a tool for improving process
performance: a case study on boron products. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 4 (3), 133.
Bereskie, T., Delpla, I., Rodriguez, M.J., Sadiq, R., 2018. Drinking-water management
in Canadian provinces and territories: a review and comparison of management
approaches for ensuring safe drinking water. Water Policy 20 (3), 565–596.
Cai, Q., Gao, Z.-K., Yang, Y.-X., Dang, W.-D., Grebogi, C., 2019. Multiplex limited
penetrable horizontal visibility graph from EEG signals for driver fatigue detection.
Int. J. Neural Syst. 29 (5), 1850057.
Cano-Ruiz, J., McRae, G., 1998. Environmentally conscious chemical process design.
Ann. Rev. Energy Environ. 23 (1), 499–536.
Czechowski, Z., Lovallo, M., Telesca, L., 2016. Multifractal analysis of visibility
graph-based Ito-related connectivity time series. Chaos 26 (2), 023118.
Danforth, C., McPartland, J., Blotevogel, J., Coleman, N., Devlin, D., Olsgard, M.,
Parkerton, T., Saunders, N., 2019. Alternative management of oil and gas produced
water requires more research on its hazards and risks. In: Integrated Environmental
Assessment and Management. Wiley Online Library.
Fu, Y., Diwekar, U.M., Young, D., Cabezas, H., 2000. Process design for the environ-
ment: A multi-objective framework under uncertainty. Clean Prod. Process. 2 (2),
92–107.
Fullér, R., Majlender, P., 2001. An analytic approach for obtaining maximal entropy
OWA operator weights. Fuzzy Sets and Systems 124 (1), 53–57.
Gandhi, H., Sadiq, R., Hu, G., Hewage, K., 2018. Ecological risk assessment of accidental
release of flowback water: A conceptual framework. Hum. Ecol. Risk. Assess. 24
(2), 398–426.
Gao, Z.-K., Cai, Q., Yang, Y.-X., Dong, N., Zhang, S.-S., 2017. Visibility graph
from adaptive optimal kernel time-frequency representation for classification of
epileptiform EEG. Int. J. Neural Syst. 27 (04), 1750005.
Gao, J., Xu, Z., Liang, Z., Liao, H., 2019. Expected consistency-based emergency
decision making with incomplete probabilistic linguistic preference relations.
Knowl.-Based Syst. 176, 15–28.
Hu, Y., Mackay, E., Vazquez, O., Ishkov, O., et al., 2018. Streamline simulation of
barium sulfate precipitation occurring within the reservoir coupled with analyses
of observed produced-water-chemistry data to aid scale management. SPE Prod.
Oper. 33 (01), 85–101.
Jiang, L., Liu, H., Cai, J., 2015. The power average operator for unbalanced linguistic
term sets. Inf. Fusion 22, 85–94.
Jiang, W., Wei, B., Tang, Y., Zhou, D., 2017. Ordered visibility graph average
aggregation operator: An application in produced water management. Chaos 27
(2), 023117.
Jiang, W., Wei, B., Zhan, J., Xie, C., Zhou, D., 2016. A visibility graph power averaging
aggregation operator: A methodology based on network analysis. Comput. Ind. Eng.
101, 260–268.
Lacasa, L., Just, W., 2018. Visibility graphs and symbolic dynamics. Physica D 374–375,
35–44.
Lacasa, L., Luque, B., Ballesteros, F., Luque, J., Nuño, J.C., 2008. From time series to
complex networks: The visibility graph. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 105 (13), 4972–4975.
Lacasa, L., Nunez, A., Roldán, É., Parrondo, J.M., Luque, B., 2012. Time series
irreversibility: a visibility graph approach. Eur. Phys. J. B 85 (6), 217.
S. Mao, Y. Deng and D. Pelusi
Li, Z., Jia, D., Guo, H., Geng, Y., Shen, C., Wang, Z., Li, X., 2019. The effect of
multigame on cooperation in spatial network. Appl. Math. Comput. 351, 162–167.
Li, X., Sun, M., Gao, C., Han, D., Wang, M., 2018. The parametric modified limited
penetrable visibility graph for constructing complex networks from time series.
Physica A 492, 1097–1106.
Li, R., Wang, J., Yu, H., Deng, B., Wei, X., Chen, Y., 2016. Fractal analysis of the short
time series in a visibility graph method. Physica A 450, 531–540.
Li, P., Wei, C., 2019. An emergency decision-making method based on DS evidence
theory for probabilistic linguistic term sets. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 37, 101178.
Liang, K., Dai, M., Shen, H., Wang, J., Wang, Z., Chen, B., 2018. L2-L synchronization
for singularly perturbed complex networks with semi-Markov jump topology. Appl.
Math. Comput. 321, 450–462.
Liu, F., Deng, Y., 2019. A fast algorithm for network forecasting time series. IEEE
Access 7 (1), 102554–102560.
Liu, C., Guo, H., Li, Z., Gao, X., Li, S., 2019. Coevolution of multi-game resolves social
dilemma in network population. Appl. Math. Comput. 341, 402–407.
Liu, P., Liu, X., 2018. The neutrosophic number generalized weighted power averaging
operator and its application in multiple attribute group decision making. Int. J.
Mach. Learn. Cybern. 9 (2), 347–358.
Liu, A., Liu, H., Xiao, Y., Tsai, S.-B., Lu, H., 2018. An empirical study on design partner
selection in green product collaboration design. Sustainability 10 (1), 133.
Liu, P., Teng, F., 2018. Multiple attribute decision making method based on normal
neutrosophic generalized weighted power averaging operator. Int. J. Mach. Learn.
Cybern. 9 (2), 281–293.
Liu, P., Zhang, X., 2019. Some intuitionistic uncertain linguistic Bonferroni mean
operators and their application to group decision making. Soft Comput. 23 (11),
3869–3886.
Sadiq, R., Khan, F.I., Veitch, B., 2005. Evaluating offshore technologies for produced
water management using greenpro-ia risk-based life cycle analysis for green and
clean process selection and design. Comput. Chem. Eng. 29 (5), 1023–1039.
Sadiq, R., Tesfamariam, S., 2008. Developing environmental indices using fuzzy
numbers ordered weighted averaging (FN-OWA) operators. Stoch. Environ. Res.
Risk Assess. 22 (4), 495–505.
Scholl, I., LaRussa, A., Hahlweg, P., Kobrin, S., Elwyn, G., 2018. Organizational-and
system-level characteristics that influence implementation of shared decision-
making and strategies to address them–a scoping review. Implement. Sci. 13 (1),
40.
Song, Y., Deng, Y., 2019. A new soft likelihood function based on power ordered
weighted average operator. Int. J. Intell. Syst. 34 (11), 2988–2999.
Song, M., Jiang, W., Xie, C., Zhou, D., 2017. A new interval numbers power average
operator in multiple attribute decision making. Int. J. Intell. Syst. 32 (6), 631–644.
Torres, L., Yadav, O.P., Khan, E., 2017. Perceived risks of produced water management
and naturally occurring radioactive material content in North Dakota. J. Environ.
Manag. 196, 56–62.
Tsai, S.-B., 2016. Using grey models for forecasting china’s growth trends in renewable
energy consumption. Clean Technol. Environ. Policy 18 (2), 563–571.
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 91 (2020) 103556
Wang, Z., Jusup, M., Shi, L., Lee, J.-H., Iwasa, Y., Boccaletti, S., 2018a. Exploiting
a cognitive bias promotes cooperation in social dilemma experiments. Nature
Commun. 9 (1), 2954.
Wang, J., Li, C., Xia, C., 2018b. Improved centrality indicators to characterize the nodal
spreading capability in complex networks. Appl. Math. Comput. 334, 388–400.
Wang, H., Mo, H., Sadiq, R., Hu, Y., Deng, Y., 2015. Ordered visibility graph
weighted averaging aggregation operator: A methodology based on network
analysis. Comput. Ind. Eng. 88, 181–190.
Wang, M., Vilela, A.L., Du, R., Zhao, L., Dong, G., Tian, L., Stanley, H.E., 2018c. Exact
results of the limited penetrable horizontal visibility graph associated to random
time series and its application. Sci. Rep. 8 (1), 5130.
Wen, T., Deng, Y., 2020a. Identification of influencers in complex networks by local
information dimensionality. Inform. Sci. 512, 549–562.
Wen, T., Deng, Y., 2020b. The vulnerability of communities in complex networks: An
entropy approach. Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf. 196, 106782.
Xiong, S.-H., Chen, Z.-S., Chang, J.-P., Chin, K.-S., 2019a. On extended power average
operators for decision-making: A case study in emergency response plan selection
of civil aviation. Comput. Ind. Eng. 130, 258–271.
Xiong, H., Shang, P., Hou, F., Ma, Y., 2019b. Visibility graph analysis of temporal
irreversibility in sleep electroencephalograms. Nonlinear Dynam. 96 (1), 1–11.
Xu, P., Zhang, R., Deng, Y., 2018. A novel visibility graph transformation of time series
into weighted networks. Chaos Solitons Fractals 117, 201–208.
Yager, R.R., 1988. On ordered weighted averaging aggregation operators in multicriteria
decisionmaking. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. 18 (1), 183–190.
Yager, R.R., 2001. The power average operator. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. A 31
(6), 724–731.
Yusoff, B., Merigó, J.M., Ceballos, D., Peláez, J.I., 2018. Weighted-selective aggregated
majority-OWA operator and its application in linguistic group decision making. Int.
J. Intell. Syst. 33 (9), 1929–1948.
Zemlick, K., Kalhor, E., Thomson, B.M., Chermak, J.M., Graham, E.J.S., Tidwell, V.C.,
2018. Mapping the energy footprint of produced water management in New
Mexico. Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2), 024008.
Zhang, Y., Xu, Z., 2019. Efficiency evaluation of sustainable water management using
the HF-TODIM method. Int. Trans. Oper. Res. 26 (2), 747–764.
Zhang, K., Zargar, A., Achari, G., Islam, M.S., Sadiq, R., 2013. Application of decision
support systems in water management. Environ. Rev. 22 (3), 189–205.
Zhao, J., Mo, H., Deng, Y., 2020a. An efficient network method for time series
forecasting based on the DC algorithm and visibility relation. IEEE Access 8,
7598–7608.
Zhao, J., Wang, Y., Deng, Y., 2020b. Identifying influential nodes in complex networks
from global perspective. Chaos Solitons Fractals.
Zhou, L., Wu, X., Xu, Z., Fujita, H., 2018. Emergency decision making for natural
disasters: An overview. Int. J. Disaster Risk Reduct. 27, 567–576.