Abstract

this report (De Castro & Von Zuben, 1999) is intended to present the basic theory and concepts necessary for the development of immune-based systems. It brings an instructive introduction to the mammal immune system and depicts its most relevant aspects from the viewpoint of engineering. Mechanisms like the clonal selection theory, the immune response along with its affinity maturation process and the immune network hypothesis are emphasized. A few computational algorithms were developed and applied to several different types of problems in order to demonstrate how principles gleaned from the immune system can and must be used in the design of engineering tools for solving complex tasks. In addition, it is introduced an emerging area of research, called immune engineering. The immune engineering is comprised of several strategies, like artificial immune systems, immune-based systems, immunogenetic approaches, etc., and is supposed to include any technique developed using ideas from immunology.

Citations