Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589

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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

A hybrid computational intelligence approach to predict spectral

acceleration
Mohsen Akhani a, Ali R. Kashani b, Mehdi Mousavi a, Amir H. Gandomi c,⇑
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran
b
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA
c
Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, a new explicit method has been suggested to predict the spectral acceleration characteristic
Received 19 August 2018 of strong ground-motions based on hybridizing genetic algorithm (GA), multilayer perceptron neural net-
Received in revised form 13 January 2019 work (MLPNN), and regression analysis (RA), called GA-NN-RA. The predictor variables encompass a per-
Accepted 21 February 2019
iod of vibration, magnitude, closest distance co-seismic rupture, shear wave velocity averaged over the
Available online 22 February 2019
top 30 m and flag for reverse faulting earthquakes. To develop the model, a data set of strong ground-
motion records gathered by Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center has been employed. For con-
Keywords:
firmation and efficiency of proposed model, an additional set of test that is not involved in the modeling
Artificial neural network
Genetic algorithm
has been applied. The obtained results using GA-NN-RA show good accuracy in comparison with other
Regression analysis ground motion models. Also, the proposed model is capable of evaluating the spectral acceleration for
Spectral acceleration any records without restriction in a period of vibration.
Ground motion models Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction and background
During the past few decades, empirical simulation by artificial
intelligence (AI) techniques has proposed several alternatives to a
wide range of complicated engineering problems and challenging
issues. The trace of AI-based methods can be found in various fields
of engineering like civil engineering [1–6], aerospace engineering
[7,8], mechanical engineering [9,10], industrial engineering [11],
and earthquake engineering [12,13]. One of the key concerns of
every engineering problem is finding a tradeoff between the
observed incidents and anticipated occurrence. To be more exact,
there are lots of critical situations where nearly exact prediction
of a given problem is determinative. The greatest struggle with
those cases is lack of enough records in addition to being compli-
cated to fit an exact formulation describing them. However, soft
computing-based predictive tools such as ANN, genetic program-
ming (GP), Bayesian approach, support vector machine (SVM),
etc, have facilitated this issue to a considerable extent. These
approaches have a wonderful ability to learn from experience
and extracting various discriminators [14,15]. Cevik and Cabalar
[16] employed Gene expression programming (GEP) as one of the
variations of GP programs to develop a prediction equation for
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: a.h.gandomi@stevens.edu (A.H. Gandomi).
URL: http://gandomi.beacon-center.org/ (A.H. Gandomi).
PGA upon a strong ground-motion data from Turkey. Moreover,
Gandomi et al. [17] derived a new equation for ground-motion pre-
diction using a hybrid method based on GP and orthogonal least
squares, called GP/OLS. In some other efforts, several variations
of ANNs have been employed to predict PGA (peak ground acceler-
ation) by Kerh and Chu [18] at two mainline sections of Kaohsiung
Mass Rapid Transit in Taiwan, Kerh and Ting [19] along a high-
speed rail system in Taiwan, Gullu and Ercelebi [20] and Gunaydin
[21] upon a strong ground-motion data set from Turkey. Ahmad
et al. [22] founded ANN-based GMMs for PGA, PGV, and PGD using
the European earthquake data. The main drawback of employing
ANNs in prediction problems is the possibility of being trapped
in local minima because of inefficient training [23]. Optimization
algorithms are proposed as effective tools for training ANNs to
overcome this issue [24–30]. Genetic algorithm (GA) as one of
the most applicable evolutionary-based algorithms has been tack-
led for training ANNs several times e.g., da Silva Ferreira [31] for
evaluating power coupling efficiency of photonic couplers, Yuce
et al. [32] for energy management in the domestic sector, Azadeh
et al. [33] for optimizing machinery productivity. In addition, the
successful application of coupling ANNs with GA in some recent
engineering problems can be found in lots of studies accordingly:
Shahri and Mahdavinejad [34] for predicting temperature distribu-
tion in laser process, Armaghani et al. [35] for air overpressure
computing due to blasting operation, Khandelwal et al. [36] for
estimating the rock material cohesion, and Yan et al. [37] for

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2019.02.054
0263-2241/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589
prediction of bond strength of glass fiber-reinforced polymer
(GFRP) bar reinforced concrete.
Multilayer perceptron neural network as one of the most robust
derivations of ANN considers a computational unit called percep-
tron. Perceptron by taking a given threshold into account gives
two possible outputs based on a linear combination of inputs as
follows: 1 for the result bigger than the threshold,
1 for an other-
wise. This methodology is capable of proposing an ideal solution
for nonlinear problems by an appropriate setting of the number
of layers and neurons, which are mostly not large [38].
As mentioned above one of the practical applications of artificial
intelligence (AI) is in the earthquake field. In this study due to the
great importance of seismic hazard analysis (SHA) as a subcategory
of earthquake engineering, we tried to focus on this crucial issue by
using AI techniques. Seismic hazard analysis is a methodology that
examines whether a structure can be stable under earthquake
stimulation or not. The most important characteristics of an earth-
quake in seismological point of view are earthquake magnitude,
distance, fault type, and soil effects. Time domain and response
domain parameters are two important engineering parameters of
an earthquake that can be applied to risk estimation of structures.
Time domain factors like peak ground acceleration (PGA), peak
ground velocity (PGV) and peak ground displacement (PGD) are
not dependent on the structural type. However, spectral parame-
ters like Spectral acceleration (Sa) are directly linked to structures
and are more efficient than time domain parameters. That is why
Sa is used frequently in seismic hazard studies [17,39]. Developing
a direct correlation between Sa and other variables is difficult
because of serious nonlinearity in GMMs. Although it is not an easy
task, but there are a few papers in which this relationship has been
developed [40,41]. By using regression analysis between strong
motion data, the attenuation relationships or ground motion mod-
els (GMMs) can be built [42–45].
In this study, due to lack of similar attempt for predicting com-
ponents of ground motion models like Sa in previous studies, an
explicit formula for GMMs using a three-step algorithm based on
GA, multi-layer perceptron ANN, and regression analysis (GA-NN-
RA) for the first time has been introduced. So, in this work, we
addressed this issue through a mentioned mechanism. In this
way, a set of aleatory standard deviations and correlation coeffi-
cients are calculated by residual analysis. Then, a multilayer per-
ceptron neural network is trained with GA to reach a well-
adjusted design of MLP architecture. As ANN is a black-box tool,
it is not usable for the later attempts. Hence, as the final step, a lin-
ear regression is applied to the output layer to evaluate weights in
this layer and derive an explicit formula. The current study pro-
poses a new simple model which is capable of estimating the spec-
tral acceleration as an essential output of any GMMs. After
considerable simulations and data exploration, we decided to
include the following predictor variables in our new model:
Moment magnitude (M), closest distance to fault rupture, shear
wave velocity averaged over top 30 m (Vs30), flag for reverse fault-
ing earthquakes (FRV) and period of vibration (T). This model effec-
tively satisfied the conditions of assessed components in
prediction models. This approach generally can be used for every
period of vibration to estimate the spectral acceleration. Analogies
between our model and previous models of Campbell and Bozorg-
nia (CB08) [46] and Abrahamson and Silva (AS97) [47] shows that
our model is much simpler than the CB08 model. Our model pro-
duces appropriate outcomes without the need to investigate prior
forms of models. The GA-NN-RA-based approach predicts the coef-
ficients of correlation and standard deviations for aleatory events
and shows good accuracy in comparison with CB08 and AS97 mod-
els. The most significant difference occurs at small-to-moderate
magnitudes from smaller distances, where these models produce
lower spectral acceleration (SA) than our model. Database of the
579
proposed model for all ground motions is gathered by the Pacific
Earthquake Engineering Research Center [48].
2. Methodology
2.1. Multi-layer perceptron neural network
In the middle of the 20th century, McCulloch and his colleagues
proposed Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as a computational
approach to solving problems in the same way that human brains
deal with problems [49]. In the brain neural network, biological
neurons have been connected with axons. Similarly, each neural
unit in a computer simulation is connected to many others. The
links between these units may make stronger or suppress during
the evolving process depending on the activation state of con-
nected neural units. Every unit combines all the input information
using a summation function and limiting or threshold function on
the unit and connections that control the propagation of the infor-
mation to other units. Neural networks are consisting of layers
made up of a number of interconnected ’nodes’ contain an ’activa-
tion function’. Multilayer Perceptron neural network (MLP) as a
combination of Perceptron layers considers the effectiveness of
various neuron inputs to the other neurons [50]. In MLP, neurons
are linked to some of their neighbors, with respect to the weight
alterations. In this way, a weighted combination of inputs trans-
formed to another input for the output neurons through at least
a hidden layer. Output neurons apply another metamorphosis
and propose the final results in the following form:
!
X
hj ¼ f xi wij þ b ð1Þ
i
‘‘where f() is activation function, xi is the activation of ith hidden
layer node, wij is the weight of the connection joining the jth neuron
in a layer with the ith neuron in the previous layer, and b is the bias
for the neuron. For nonlinear problems, the sigmoid functions
(hyperbolic tangent sigmoid or log-sigmoid) are commonly adopted
as the activation function” [51].
If we consider Q, as an output layer in which there are NQ num-
ber of neurons, by minimizing the mean squared error through the
learning procedure of MLP between the expected outputs rq and
the obtained outputs Uq of each node of the output layer Q using
back-propagation algorithms accordingly:
1 X
NQ
EQ ¼ ðrq
Uq Þ2 ð2Þ
NQ q¼1
One of the most well-known MLP training algorithms is the
Conjugate Gradient which is used here in the back-propagation
training procedure.
2.2. Genetic algorithm
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is a convenient approach for handling
nonlinear problems based on the natural evolution of organisms
over their reproduction [52,53]. GA is a random search technique
capable of dealing with no differentiable, non-convex, and discon-
tinuous problems like capacitated plant location [54], fixed charge
network design [55], minimum spanning tree [56], network design
[57] and warehouse allocation [58].
GA represents each string of potential solution as a chromo-
some containing sub-strings as biological genes. Sub-strings con-
vey candidate solution’s features to the next generations using
three genetic operations: selection, crossover, and mutation.
Before applying those operators, an additional mechanism is
defined called reproduction operator. This operator transfers the
580 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589
finest chromosomes to the next generation directly. Then, the
selection procedure finds two of the best exemplars as the parents
for breeding. In the crossover, some parts of the parents’ chromo-
somes displaced mutually to produce offspring. There are several
strategies for recombination of the chromosomes via crossover like
single-point crossover, two-point crossover, and uniform cross-
over. Finally, based on a mutation a sub-string of the children will
be altered with a predefined probability. We can see further infor-
mation/details regarding GA background in the other works [59].
2.3. Regression
Regression analysis is a type of statistical process which corre-
sponds a set of input variables (predictor) to an output one
(response). There are several techniques which correlate one or
more independent variables to a dependent one through different
modeling. In other words, regression analysis proposes the chang-
ing pattern of a dependent variable by independent variables’ vari-
ations. To this end, a regression function will be developed which is
capable of estimating the dependent variable’s value using inputs.
In a set of data obtained from either a mathematical model or
empirical observation, regression can be used to evaluate any value
of y given a value of x. A linear regression uses a linear function of x
to describe y. Hence, if a linear regression will analyze a set of x in
the form of a vector, a linear combination of the values of x will
construct y.
One of the major applications of regression is in the field of
machine learning for prediction. To be more precise, this tool will
be helpful to recognize effective factors on the outputs. In fact,
by applying a linear regression to the output layer, it is possible
to create a leaner equation for finding the weights. This process
will be done by applying the inverse of the activation function to
the target. This system of the equation may be solved by the
approach of Gauss and Jordan, while a better alternative may be
using the method of Singular Value Decomposition [60,61].
2.4. Hybridization artificial neural network-genetic algorithm with
regression (GA-NN-RA)
Evolution of neural networks in the brain in order to diagnose,
decide, recognize, and predict of different phenomena will be done
based on different experiences within the process of getting
matured. By imitating such rules, ANNs predicts outputs based
on learning from specific data. The learning procedure will be done
using two data sets: a training set and a testing set. The architec-
ture of the networks which defines as the networks’ weights and
neurons’ interconnections will be adjusted within the training pro-
cess. Then by redesigning the architecture, it will be tried to min-
imize the difference between the outputs and trial category [62].
The process of training is broadly separated into two principal
steps: (1) ‘‘initialization” and (2) ‘‘optimization”. In the initializa-
tion step, preliminary random values will be allocated to the
weights of the network while the best adjustment for the intercon-
nections of the layers will be defined through the optimization
step. Using random search techniques such as evolutionary-based
algorithms for initialization can propose an appropriate starting
point to the gradient-based algorithms for the optimization pro-
cess [63]. Another concern with ANN is not revealing the content
of layers like weight and architecture of the network. Therefore,
at the final step, a linear regression is applied to the output layer
to examine the weights configuration in this layer.
In this study, a three step-algorithm (GA-NN-RA) is tackled to
handle our proposed problem. In the first step, GA starts from a
population of solutions and tries to detect the best weights in
the layers by minimizing the mean square error. Next, back-
propagation training performs by Conjugate Gradient method.
Finally, a linear regression is applied to the output layer for finding
and optimizing the weights in this layer. The mentioned steps are
visualized in Fig. 1.
3. How to formulize of the GA-NN_RA model
Seismologists are interested about the characteristics of
ground-motions that can possibly damage the structures during
earthquake. Duration of an earthquake, amplitude, and frequency
content are the major characteristics of the earthquake [17,64].
Sa, PGD, PGV, and PGA play an important role in the explanation
of strong-motion characteristics. These factors are commonly sta-
ted as functions of various seismic parameters. Source effect, path
effect and site effect are the most important factors that can affect
ground-motion parameters. [17] Source effect is related to some
parameters like faulting mechanism. Site effect is related to dis-
tance from the fault. But site effect is a remarkable parameter
included in GMMs. nevertheless, modern GMMs [44,45] mainly
use earthquake magnitude, source to site distance, fault type and
some other parameters of the site.
Recently, new improved methods have been used to develop
the accuracy of regression based analysis. This research employs
GA-NN-RA approach to derive alternative GMMs for Sa. In this
study, the most important characteristics of an earthquake that
can represent the behavior of ground motions are selected based
on the trial study.
Finally, the formulation of Sa is considered to be as follows:
lnðsaÞ ¼ f ðF RV ; T; M w ; Rrup ; V s30 Þ ð3Þ
 FRV: Fault type
 T: period
 Mw: Earthquake magnitude
 Rrup (km): closest distance co-seismic rupture
 Vs30 (m/s): shear wave velocity averaged to 30 (m) depth
3.1. Database of strong-motions
The utilized data base for improvement of the model is col-
lected from the PEER-NGA project. It contains ‘‘shallow crustal
earthquakes recorded data at tectonic regions of the world” [48]
with a wide range of magnitudes and distances. In this research,
some data are excluded because of filtering strategies proposed
by Campbell and Bozorgnia [46]. Finally, 1561 records for two dif-
ferent fault types are selected to develop the model. As mentioned,
Initialization:
Genetic Algorithm
Back-propagation Neural Network:
Conjugate Gradient
Last Step:
Linear Regression Analysis
Fig. 1. The main steps of GA-NN-RA algorithm.
 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589 581

the predictors are FRV; Mw; Rrup; T; Vs30 while Sa is ground motion
parameter that should be formulated.
The whole data set is randomly separated into learning and
testing subsets for the analysis. The learning data are employed
for training algorithm and involved in the modeling process. Even-
tually, the testing data are utilized to evaluate the efficiency of the
models estimated by MLP on the data. Of the all data sets which are
as the same as CB08 model, 85% of data vectors are used for the
training process. The remaining data (15%) are taken for testing.
3.2. Proposed Sa explicit model
In order to produce an explicit model, it is necessary to fix
weights and biases after well training the GA-NN-RA. A mathemat-
ical expression which describes Sa is depicted accordingly:
X
nh X
ni
LnðSa Þ ¼ 10  Logsig Bias þ V h Logsig biash þ
h¼1 i¼1
where ni is number of inputs which is equal 5 and nh is number of
hidden neurons which is equal to 6. In this formula, variables (xi)
should be normalized based on the values presented in Table 1 as
follows:
x1 ¼ T=12; x2 ¼ Mw =10; x3 ¼ RRup =200; x4 ¼ F RV =3; and
x5 ¼ Vs30 =2; 500:
The weights and biases between the input layer and the hidden
layers, and between the hidden layers and the output layer are pre-
sented in Tables 2 and 3, respectively.
4. Results and discussions
4.1. Analogies between this model and existing prediction models
Numerous GMMs can estimate Sa. The results of this model are
analogous to two well-known models of Campbell and Bozorgnia
(CB08) [46] and Abrahamson and Silva (AS97) [47]. Campbell and
Bozorgnia developed an empirical model for Sa, that is a part of
Next-generation attenuation (NGA). These models belong to a dif-
ferent generation, and that is why they were chosen. Hence, they
can be considered as a good benchmark for MLP-based models.
An effective method to observe whether there is any non-
conformity between the prediction and observation is to employ
residual analysis. In this study, we intend to investigate the resid-
ual analysis and compare our new MLP-based ground- motion rela-
tion with these two ground motion relations.
Here the random uncertainty model by the general equation is
given accordingly:


lnY ij ¼ lnY ij þgi þ eij ð5Þ
where gi is the source related inter-event randomness for the ith


!! earthquake, and where lnY ij and ln Yij are the median estimate,
and the observed value of the jth recording for the ith earthquake,
wih xi
respectively. The gi and eij are independent normally distributed
variates with variances s2 and r2. The aleatory standard deviations
ð4Þ
and correlation coefficients are listed in Table 4. The rT, total stan-
dard deviation, is square root of sum of squares of tau and sigma.
In order to measure the goodness of the standard deviation of
our model, the corresponding deviation parameters of the CB08
model are also presented in the above table. As shown in this table,
the standard deviation of our model is comparable with the CB08
in most of the period. It is notable that the CB08 is a classic model
which uses different coefficient for each period. However, our
developed model is a unique formula that can be used for each
arbitrarily period.
In the following, first, residual analyzes of this model as func-
tions of all considered parameters, for evaluation the model are
depicted. The residuals are shown for spectral periods of 0.01,
0.3, 1.5, 3 s. Figs. 2 and 3 show the dependence of inter-event
and intra-event residuals on magnitude. As indicated in these fig-
ures, there is no systematic magnitude dependence in the residuals
of the calibrated model.
The model is also evaluated through closest distance and shear
wave velocity over the top 30 m. Dependence of the intra-event
residuals, fault type dependence of the inter-event residuals and

Table 1
Normalization values.

Parameter T Mw Rrup (km) FRV Vs_30 Ln(Sa)

Normalization Value 12 10 200 3 2500 10

Table 2
Weight (Wih) and bias values between the input and hidden layer.

Inputs (i) Number of hidden neurons (h)

1 2 3 4 5 6
x1
0.7511 0.6120
0.9099
5.6342
20.8904
26.3488
x2 5.8982
3.6076
6.1565 3.0586
5.2773
0.7304
x3 0.1290
8.3205
1.4052
3.2277 0.0121 0.1765
x4
0.1697
0.2172 8.2564
1.8615 0.1752 0.3126
x5
0.4482 0.4402 0.1261
11.8363 0.8051
0.3963
biash
0.9228
0.3912
4.5749 2.5589 3.2183
2.4668

Table 3
Weight (Vh) and bias values between the hidden and output layer.

Number of hidden neurons (h) Bias

1 2 3 4 5 6
5.7724 3.9523 2.6079 0.1672 1.1700
8.6133
5.2863
582 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589

Table 4
The aleatory standard deviations and correlation coefficients.

Period Here Developed Model CB08 Model

r s rT q r s rT q
0.01 0.493 0.221 0.540 0.831 0.478 0.219 0.526 1.000
0.02 0.496 0.247 0.554 0.832 0.480 0.219 0.528 0.994
0.03 0.502 0.268 0.569 0.835 0.489 0.235 0.543 0.979
0.05 0.504 0.279 0.576 0.840 0.510 0.258 0.572 0.927
0.075 0.512 0.200 0.550 0.841 0.520 0.292 0.596 0.880
0.1 0.527 0.306 0.610 0.836 0.531 0.286 0.603 0.871
0.15 0.530 0.302 0.610 0.829 0.532 0.280 0.601 0.885
0.2 0.535 0.309 0.618 0.815 0.534 0.249 0.589 0.913
0.25 0.529 0.279 0.598 0.813 0.534 0.240 0.585 0.873
0.3 0.535 0.265 0.597 0.804 0.544 0.215 0.585 0.848
0.4 0.541 0.297 0.617 0.796 0.541 0.217 0.583 0.756
0.5 0.568 0.320 0.652 0.781 0.550 0.214 0.590 0.631
0.75 0.596 0.357 0.695 0.770 0.568 0.227 0.612 0.442
1 0.599 0.365 0.702 0.782 0.568 0.255 0.623 0.290
1.5 0.619 0.335 0.704 0.804 0.564 0.296 0.637 0.290
2 0.643 0.258 0.693 0.818 0.571 0.296 0.643 0.290
3 0.649 0.250 0.695 0.847 0.558 0.326 0.646 0.290
4 0.693 0.395 0.798 0.855 0.576 0.297 0.648 0.290
5 0.751 0.380 0.841 0.856 0.601 0.359 0.700 0.290
7.5 0.839 0.413 0.935 0.851 0.628 0.428 0.760 0.290
10 0.880 0.574 1.051 0.854 0.667 0.485 0.825 0.290

Fig. 2. Dependence of inter-event residuals on earthquake magnitude.

also dependence of intra-event residual for shear wave velocity.
These can be illustrated in Figs. 4–6. As it is clear from these fig-
ures, the regression model is unbiased with respect to the men-
tioned parameters. At short periods, where the Vs30s are smaller
in Fig. 6, the few points show a positive bias and behaviors are vice
versa in long periods. We do not have any particular explanation
for this under-prediction except it might be an artifact of the
sampling.
In order to compare the obtained model with the classic spec-
tral GMMs, CB08 and AS97 models have been chosen here. Figs. 7
and 8 show the trend of acceleration toward components of GMMs
in different periods and compare our model to those mentioned
models. Fig. 7 is for an earthquake of magnitude 7 and attenuation
curve closely follow our model at all distances. A high consistency
can be shown between acceleration values predicted by our model
and CB080 NGA model and AS97 model. The only noticeable differ-
ence lies in the acceleration value at the distance equal to 20 km
and moment magnitude over 7 at short periods in Fig. 8. In Figs. 7
and 8, Vs30 is constant and just magnitude or closest distance rup-
ture is varied from time to time. As it can be observed, the results
of our model demonstrate good agreements with those of two
other models. We believe that better magnitude-independent or
distance-dependent aleatory uncertainty predicted by our model
is convenient even at close distances or high magnitudes. In
 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589 583

Fig. 3. Dependence of intra-event residuals on earthquake magnitude.

Fig. 4. Dependence of intra-event residuals on rupture distance.

Fig. 7 There are small differences between the values of our model Most of the existing ground motion prediction models include
and other models especially at short periods that are related to the several parameters, for example, CB08 involves nine parameters.
consideration of rupture model uncertainties [65]. However, the proposed GA-NN-RA model only uses five predictors
584 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589

Fig. 5. Dependence of inter-event residuals on faulting type.

Fig. 6. Dependence of intra-event residuals on 30 m shear wave velocity.

(FRV, Mw, R, T, Vs30). As more data could be available on NGA, this
model can show more accuracy for a broader range of data. Note
that these two models which were in this comparative paper were
employed by using regression analysis. By controlling a small num-
ber of equations over the regression, the results of these models are
obtained. However, the interactions between predictors and out-
put cannot be examined effectively [17]. One advantage that
makes MLP-based method better than traditional regression anal-
ysis method is that they produce GMMs without considering pre-
vious forms of relationships.
4.1.1. Model validation
Based on logical theory [66], the predicted values are strongly
correlated with the measured values, if a model gives R  0:8
and the error values are minimized. It can be seen from Table 5
that GA-NN-RA model provide an acceptable amount of values
 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589 585

Fig. 7. Comparison of GMMs of CB08 and AS97 for Mw7.0, VS30 = 760 m/s to corresponding results of this study.

Fig. 8. Comparison of GMMs of CB08 and AS97 for R = 20 km, VS30 = 760 m/s to corresponding results of this study.

because of high R and low MAE. New criteria for external validation
which was suggested by Golbraikh and Tropsha [67], is also
assessed in this study. It suggests that at least one slope of regres-
0
sion lines (k or k ) should be close to 1, as well as the squared cor-
relation coefficient between predicted and experimental values
(Ro2), or the coefficient between experimental and predicted values
(Ro0 2) [1,67]. The obtained relevant results and the acceptable vali-
dation criteria by the models satisfy other conditions, and they are
illustrated in the table. The validation results show that the GA-NN-
RA model is valid and can dependably be employed to estimate Sa.
586 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589

Table 5
Statistical parameters of the GA-NN-RA and CB08 models for the external validation.

Item Formula Condition GA-NN-RA CB08

1 RRMSE (%) – 14.389 15.329
2 RMAE (%) – 11.166 11.937
3 R R > 0.8 0.928 0.919
Pn
4 ðhi t i Þ 0.85 < K < 1.15 0.999 1.013
k ¼ i¼1 2
h
Pn i
5 0 ðhi t i Þ 0.85 < K0 < 1.15 0.982 0.967
k ¼ i¼1t2
i
 rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 ffi
6   Rm > 0.5 0.542 0.514
Rm ¼ R2  1
R2
Ro2 
Pn
where ðti
hoi Þ
2
o 1.000 0.999
Ro2 ¼ 1
Pi¼1 n

2 ; hi ¼ k  ti
ti
t i
P
i¼1
n
ðhi
toi Þ
2
0 0.997 0.990
Ro02 ¼ 1
Pi¼1 2 ; t i ¼ k  hi
o
ðhi
hi Þ
n
i¼1

Table 6
Statistical comparison of GA-NN-RA, ANN and RA using six different metrics.

Model Measure Time (s)

MSE PSNR R-value RMSE NRMSE MAPE (%)
GA-NN-RA 0.0036 24.4371 0.982 0.06 0.0539 21.248 N.A.
RA_Andrews 0.0089 20.4955 0.9554 0.0945 0.0849 29.1754 0.55
RA_bisquare 0.0089 20.4957 0.9554 0.0945 0.0849 29.1754 3.83
RA_cauchy 0.0089 20.5057 0.9555 0.0943 0.0848 29.2246 0.53
RA_fair 0.0089 20.5129 0.9556 0.0943 0.0848 29.2599 0.51
RA_huber 0.0089 20.5045 0.9555 0.0944 0.0848 29.2248 0.51
RA_logistic 0.0089 20.5086 0.9556 0.0943 0.0848 29.2374 0.57
RA_OLS 0.0089 20.5286 0.9558 0.0941 0.0846 29.2393 0.25
RA_talwar 0.0089 20.5033 0.9555 0.0944 0.0848 29.2331 0.32
RA_welsch 0.0089 20.4998 0.9555 0.0944 0.0849 29.1966 0.59
Levenberg-Marquardt 0.0113 19.4742 0.9436 0.1062 0.0955 29.3351 31.34
Bayesian Regularization 0.0113 19.472 0.9436 0.1063 0.0955 29.2846 983.39
BFGS Quasi-Newton 0.0113 19.4712 0.9436 0.1063 0.0956 29.3277 15.12
Resilient Backpropagation 0.0113 19.4650 0.9435 0.1064 0.0956 29.3693 9.73
Scaled Conjugate Gradient 0.0113 19.4648 0.9435 0.1064 0.0956 29.4663 5.37
Conjugate Gradient 0.0114 19.4438 0.9432 0.1066 0.0959 29.3285 16.58
Fletcher-Powell 0.0113 19.4687 0.9436 0.1063 0.0956 29.7228 8.95
Polak-Ribiére 0.0113 19.4702 0.9436 0.1063 0.0956 29.4499 13.54
One Step Secant 0.0113 19.4543 0.9434 0.1065 0.0957 29.3923 11.67
Variable Learning 0.0114 19.4237 0.9430 0.1069 0.0961 29.4254 13.54
Gradient Descent with Momentum 0.5911 2.2837
1.9522 0.7688 0.6912 261.4579 2.33
Gradient Descent 0.0234 16.3164 0.8834 0.1528 0.1374 44.8417 103.21

4.2. Parametric analysis
To better confirm the GA_NN_RA model, its obtained results are
compared to the ones by linear regression and ANN models sepa-
rately. To this end five different measures are tackled to provide
a comparison between here utilized methods and real observed
dataset as presented in Table 6. As it can be seen in Table 6, linear
regression with nine different weight functions and ANN with 12
training schemes are provided.
Mean Squared Error (MSE) is defined as the cumulative differ-
ence between the original dataset and the predicted one. There-
fore, as shown in Table 6, GA-NN-RA with the lowest value of
MSE provided the most compatibility with the observed Ln(Sa).
Normalized Root-mean-square deviation (NRMSE) is also demon-
strated that GA-NN-RA by the lowest vale performed better than
other algorithms in this study. Quality estimation through peak
signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) affirmed the results from MSE metric.
It can be seen the highest value of PSNR is obtained by GA-NN-RA
which shows the best performance of this method. Moreover, RA
methods illustrated better conformities to the original dataset than
ANNs. The r-squared method is another statistical measure utilized
for evaluating how close the predicted data are to the original data.
This method is defined as the response variable variation that is
explained by the predicted model. Based on this metric GA-NN-
RA with the highest R-value is the best tool in this study. The -
root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) is another metric to bench-
mark our utilized tools. Based on this method, a non-negative
value describes the better fit between the predicted and original
data with lower RMSD value. According to Table 6, GA-NN-RA
obtained the lowest value of RMSD again. The mean absolute per-
centage error (MAPE), is another measure to examine the accuracy
of the estimator in statistics by defining the percentage of error.
Obviously, the lower values of error percentage represent the bet-
ter performance of the predictor. In this study, the lowest value of
MAPE obtained by GA-NN-RA proves all the previous observation
and betterness of this algorithm. The training time for ANN and
analysis time for RA are gathered in Table 6. However, the training
time for GA-NN-RA is not recorded. Of course, it takes more time
than both ANN and RA.
Moreover, a parametric analysis was carried out herein. It
examines the response of predicted parameters to a set of vari-
ables. The robust performance of the equations depends on how
good the predicted Sa values agree with the physical behavior of
ground-motions [22]. The Sa attenuation curves, by GA-NN-RA
model, are shown in Figs. 9 and 10. As it can be seen from Fig. 9,
by increasing distance from 10 to 200 km while Mw is constant,
 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589 587

Fig. 9. Comparison of the predicted acceleration spectrum of CB08 and AS97 for Mw7.0, VS30 = 760 m/s and different distances to corresponding results of this study.

Fig. 10. Comparison of the predicted acceleration spectrum of CB08 and AS97 for R = 20 km, VS30 = 760 m/s and different magnitudes to corresponding results of this study.

the amount of spectral acceleration is decreasing. In Fig. 9 which
distance is constant and magnitude varies from 5 to 8, the values
of spectral acceleration are showing the same trend, and by rising
Mw, Sa values increases. Fig. 9 shows that the median spectra from
this model are very similar to the spectra from the previous model
of CB08 an AS97. There are not any significant differences between
all models in this diagram. In all distances, the current model leads
to lower median ground motion at short periods and long periods.
In Fig. 10, the models are in close agreement with Mw = 7, but
the new model leads to smaller ground motions for Mw = 8. The
ground motions for Mw = 6 are more substantial in the new model.
However, there is a growth trend for short periods in Mw = 5 and a
decline for extended periods.
5. Conclusions
In this study, a new constructive hybrid method combining a
genetic algorithm, neural network, and regression analysis called
GA-NN-RA is employed to derive a GMMs for ground motion
588 M. Akhani et al. / Measurement 138 (2019) 578–589
parameters. A database including thousands of records is used to
develop the suggested model. The most important conclusions
can be outlined as follows:
 The GA-NN-RA model provides dependable evaluations of Sa
values. This model effectively satisfied the conditions of crite-
rion which was considered to be assessed as an essential com-
ponent in prediction models.
 The suggested model takes into account the role of several
important factors (FRV, R, Mw, T, and Vs30) which represent the
behavior of strong ground motions parameters.
 The model mainly is valid for use in the western United States
and other similar regions of shallow crusting faulting world-
wide where are tectonically active.
 The GA-NN-RA model provides better performance for predic-
tion than the benchmark models. It produces appropriate out-
comes without the need to investigate prior forms of
relationship.
 This GA-NN-RA-based approach predicts the coefficients of cor-
relation and standard deviations for aleatory events and shows
good accuracy in comparison with CB08 and AS97 prediction
models.
 This model is continuous and much simpler than the CB08
ground model.
 The GA-NN-RA model generally can be used for every period of
vibration to estimate the spectral acceleration.
 This model can be used for analyzing residual by assuming con-
stant coefficient for source events. Despite the random behavior
of this model, it shows better outcomes in all properties
 There is only one ambiguous opinion about this model which is
related to the random formed function that is not based on
physical procedure. Parametric analysis solved this obscurity
and based on results; this model shows considerable accuracy
in predicted acceleration spectrum.
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