Prediction of the antimicrobial activity of walnut (Juglans regia L.) kernel aqueous extracts using artificial neural network and multiple linear regression.

The mathematical model was established to determine the diameter of inhibition zone of the walnut extract on the twelve bacterial species. Type of extraction, concentration, and pathogens were taken as input variables. Two models were used with the aim of designing this system. One of them was developed with artificial neural networks (ANN), and the other was formed with multiple linear regression (MLR). Four common training algorithms were used. Levenberg-Marquardt (LM), Bayesian regulation (BR), scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) and resilient back propagation (RP) were investigated, and the algorithms were compared. Root mean squared error and correlation coefficient were evaluated as performance criteria. When these criteria were analyzed, ANN showed high prediction performance, while MLR showed low prediction performance. As a result, it is seen that when the different input values are provided to the system developed with ANN, the most accurate inhibition zone (IZ) estimates were obtained. The results of this study could offer new perspectives, particularly in the field of microbiology, because these could be applied to other type of extraction, concentrations, and pathogens, without resorting to experiments.