From Prediction to Prescription: Evolutionary Optimization of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions in the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Several models have been developed to predict how the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, and how it could be contained with nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as social distancing restrictions and school and business closures. This article demonstrates how evolutionary AI can be used to facilitate the next step, i.e., determining most effective intervention strategies automatically. Through evolutionary surrogate-assisted prescription, it is possible to generate a large number of candidate strategies and evaluate them with predictive models. In principle, strategies can be customized for different countries and locales, and balance the need to contain the pandemic and the need to minimize their economic impact. Early experiments suggest that workplace and school restrictions are the most important and need to be designed carefully. They also demonstrate that results of lifting restrictions can be unreliable, and suggest creative ways in which restrictions can be implemented softly, e.g., by alternating them over time. As more data becomes available, the approach can be increasingly useful in dealing with COVID-19 as well as possible future pandemics.

Designing optimal convolutional neural network architecture using differential evolution algorithm.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are deep learning models used widely for solving various tasks like computer vision and speech recognition. CNNs are developed manually based on problem-specific domain knowledge and tricky settings, which are laborious, time consuming, and challenging. To solve these, our study develops an improved differential evolution of convolutional neural network (IDECNN) algorithm to design CNN layer architectures for image classification. Variable-length encoding is utilized to represent the flexible layer architecture of a CNN model in IDECNN. An efficient heuristic mechanism is proposed in IDECNN to evolve CNN architecture through mutation and crossover to prevent premature convergence during the evolutionary process. Eight well-known imaging datasets were utilized. The results showed that IDECNN could design suitable architecture compared with 20 existing CNN models. Finally, CNN architectures are applied to pneumonia and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) X-ray biomedical image data. The results demonstrated the usefulness of the proposed approach to generate a suitable CNN model.

COVID-19 Spread Prediction and Its Impact on the Stock market price

Predicting the Covid-19 spread and its impact on the stock market is an important research challenge these days. In order to obtain the best forecasting model, we have exploited neuro-evolutionary technique Cartesian genetic programming evolved artificial neural network (CGPANN) based solution to predict the future cases of COVID-19 up to 6-days in advance. This helps authorities and paramedical staff to take precautionary measures on time which helps in counteracting the spreading of the virus. The rising number of COVID cases has caused a significant impact on the stock market. CGPANN being the best performer for the time series prediction model seems ideal for the case under consideration. The proposed model achieved an accuracy as high as 98% predicting COVID-19 cases for the next six days. When compared with other contemporary models CGPANN seems to perform well ahead in terms of accuracy. © 2022 IEEE.

X-ray image based COVID-19 detection using evolutionary deep learning approach.

Radiological methodologies, such as chest x-rays and CT, are widely employed to help diagnose and monitor COVID-19 disease. COVID-19 displays certain radiological patterns easily detectable by X-rays of the chest. Therefore, radiologists can investigate these patterns for detecting coronavirus disease. However, this task is time-consuming and needs lots of trial and error. One of the main solutions to resolve this issue is to apply intelligent techniques such as deep learning (DL) models to automatically analyze the chest X-rays. Nevertheless, fine-tuning of architecture and hyperparameters of DL models is a complex and time-consuming procedure. In this paper, we propose an effective method to detect COVID-19 disease by applying convolutional neural network (CNN) to the chest X-ray images. To improve the accuracy of the proposed method, the last Softmax CNN layer is replaced with a K -nearest neighbors (KNN) classifier which takes into account the agreement of the neighborhood labeling. Moreover, we develop a novel evolutionary algorithm by improving the basic version of competitive swarm optimizer. To this end, three powerful evolutionary operators: Cauchy Mutation (CM), Evolutionary Boundary Constraint Handling (EBCH), and tent chaotic map are incorporated into the search process of the proposed evolutionary algorithm to speed up its convergence and make an excellent balance between exploration and exploitation phases. Then, the proposed evolutionary algorithm is used to automatically achieve the optimal values of CNN's hyperparameters leading to a significant improvement in the classification accuracy of the proposed method. Comprehensive comparative results reveal that compared with current models in the literature, the proposed method performs significantly more efficient.

Optimal non-pharmaceutical intervention policy for Covid-19 epidemic via neuroevolution algorithm.

BACKGROUND: National responses to the Covid-19 pandemic varied markedly across countries, from business-as-usual to complete shutdowns. Policies aimed at disrupting the viral transmission cycle and preventing the overwhelming of healthcare systems inevitably exact an economic toll. METHODOLOGY: We developed an intervention policy model that comprised the relative human, implementation and healthcare costs of non-pharmaceutical epidemic interventions and identified the optimal strategy using a neuroevolution algorithm. The proposed model finds the minimum required reduction in transmission rates to maintain the burden on the healthcare system below the maximum capacity. RESULTS: We find that such a policy renders a sharp increase in the control strength during the early stages of the epidemic, followed by a steady increase in the subsequent ten weeks as the epidemic approaches its peak, and finally the control strength is gradually decreased as the population moves towards herd immunity. We have also shown how such a model can provide an efficient adaptive intervention policy at different stages of the epidemic without having access to the entire history of its progression in the population. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: This work emphasizes the importance of imposing intervention measures early and provides insights into adaptive intervention policies to minimize the economic impacts of the epidemic without putting an extra burden on the healthcare system. LAY SUMMARY: We developed an intervention policy model that comprised the relative human, implementation and healthcare costs of non-pharmaceutical epidemic interventions and identified the optimal strategy using a neuroevolution algorithm. Our work emphasizes the importance of imposing intervention measures early and provides insights into adaptive intervention policies to minimize the economic impacts of the epidemic without putting an extra burden on the healthcare system.