Investigation of robustness of hybrid artificial neural network with artificial bee colony and firefly algorithm in predicting COVID-19 new cases: case study of Iran

As an ongoing public health menace, the novel coronavirus pandemic has challenged the world. With several mutations and a high transmission rate, the virus is able to infect individuals in an exponential manner. At the same time, Iran is confronted with multiple wave peaks and the health care system is facing a major challenge. In consequence, developing a robust forecasting methodology can assist health authorities for effective planning. In that regard, with the help of Artificial Neural Network-Artificial Bee Colony (ANN-ABC) and Artificial Neural Network- Firefly Algorithm (ANN-FA) as two robust hybrid artificial intelligence-based models, the current study intends to select the optimal model with the maximum accuracy rate. To do so, first a sample of COVID-19 confirmed cases in Iran ranging from 19 February 2020 to 25 July 2021 is compiled. 75% (25%) of total observation is randomly allocated as training (testing) data. Afterwards, an ANN models is trained with Levenberg Marquardt algorithm. Accordingly, based on R-squared and root-mean-square error criteria, the optimal number of hidden neurons is computed as 17. The proposed ANN model is employed to develop ANN-ABC and ANN-FA models for achieving the maximum accuracy rate. According to ANN-ABC, the R- squared values of the optimal model are 0.9884 and 0.9885 at train and test stages, correspondingly. In respect to ANN-FA, for the selected model, the R-squared ranged from 0.9954 to 0.9940 at the train and test phases, respectively. The results indicated that both hybrid ANN-ABC and ANN-FA are the robust predictor of COVID-19 new cases in Iran. Additionally, with a slight difference, the ANN-FA model outperformed ANN-ABC algorithm.