Natural immune systems protect animals from dangerous foreign pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, parasites, and toxins. Their role in the body is analogous to that of computer security systems in computing. Although there are many differences between living organisms and computer systems, this article argues that the similarities are compelling and could point the way to improved computer security. Improvements can be achieved by designing computer immune systems that have some of the important properties illustrated by natural immune systems. These include multi-layered protection, highly distributed detection and memory systems, diversity of detection ability across individuals, inexact matching strategies, and sensitivity to most new foreign patterns. We first give an overview of how the immune system relates to computer security. We then illustrate these ideas with two examples.

After a decade of research into the area of Artificial Immune Systems, it is worthwhile to take a step back and reflect on the contributions that the paradigm has brought to the application areas to which it has been applied. Undeniably, there have been a lot of successful stories — however, if the field is to advance in the future and really carve out its own distinctive niche, then it is necessary to be able to illustrate that there are clear benefits to be obtained by applying this paradigm rather than others. This paper attempts to take stock of the application areas that have been tackled in the past, and ask the difficult question “was it worth it?”. We then attempt to suggest a set of problem features that we believe will allow the true potential of the immunological system to be exploited in computational systems, and define a unique niche for AIS. Key words: AIS, applications 1

We propose that bio-inspired algorithms are best developed and analysed in the context of a multidisciplinary conceptual framework that provides for sophisticated biological models and well-founded analytical principles, and we outline such a framework here, in the context of AIS network models. We further propose ways to unify several domains into a common meta-framework, in the context of AIS population models. We finally hint at the possibility of a novel instantiation of such a metaframework, thereby allowing the building of a specific computational framework that is inspired by biology, but not restricted to any one particular biological domain.

The field of Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) concerns the study and development of computationally interesting abstractions of the immune system. This survey tracks the development of AIS since its inception, and then attempts to make an assessment of its usefulness, defined in terms of ‘distinctiveness ’ and ‘effectiveness. ’ In this paper, the standard types of AIS are examined—Negative Selection, Clonal Selection and Immune Networks—as well as a new breed of AIS, based on the immunological ‘danger theory. ’ The paper concludes that all types of AIS largely satisfy the criteria outlined for being useful, but only two types of AIS satisfy both criteria with any certainty.

This thesis explores the design and application of artificial immune systems (AISs), problem-solving systems inspired by the human and other immune systems. AISs to date have largely been modelled on the biological adaptive immune system and have taken little inspiration from the innate immune system. The first part of this thesis examines the biological innate immune system, which controls the adaptive immune system. The importance of the innate immune system suggests that AISs should also incorporate models of the innate immune system as well as the adaptive immune system. This thesis presents and discusses a number of design principles for AISs which are modelled on both innate and adaptive immunity. These novel design principles provided a structured framework for developing AISs which incorporate innate and adaptive immune systems in general. These design principles are used to build a software system which allows such AISs to be implemented and explored.

In this position paper, we argue that the field of Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) has reached an impasse. For many years, immune inspired algorithms, whilst having some degree of success, have been limited by the lack of theoretical advances, the adoption of a naive immune inspired approach and the limited application of AIS to challenging problems. We review the current state of the AIS approach, and suggest a number of challenges to the AIS community that can be undertaken to help move the area forward.

Abstract. In this conceptual paper, we consider the state of artificial immune system (AIS) design today, and the nature of the immune theories on which they are based. We highlight the disagreement amongst many immunologists regarding the concept of self–non-self discriminations in the immune system, and go on describe on such model that removes altogether the requirement for self–non-self discrimination. We then identify the possible inspiration ideas for AIS that can be gained from such new, and often radical, models of the immune system. Next, we outline a possible approach to designing AIS that are inspired by new immune theories, following a suitable methodology and selecting appropriate modelling tools. Lastly, we follow our approach and present an example of how the AIS designer might take inspiration from a specific property of a new immune theory. This example highlights our proposed method for inspiring the design of the next generation of AIS. 1

s: Jan. 1995 { Sep. 1998 ACM: ACM Guide to Computing Literature: 1979 - 1993/4 BA: Biological Abstracts: July 1996 - Aug. 1998 CA: Computer Abstracts: Jan. 1993 { Feb. 1995 CCA: Computer & Control Abstracts: Jan. 1992 { Apr. 1998 (except May-95) ChA: Chemical Abstracts: Jan. 1997 - Dec. 1998 CTI: Current Technology Index Jan./Feb. 1993 { Jan./Feb. 1994 DAI: Dissertation Abstracts International: Vol. 53 No. 1 { Vol. 56 No. 10 (Apr. 1996) EEA: Electrical & Electronics Abstracts: Jan. 1991 { Apr. 1998 EI A: The Engineering Index Annual: 1987 - 1992 EI M: The Engineering Index Monthly: Jan. 1993 { Apr. 1998 (except May 1997) N: Scientic and Technical Aerospace Reports: Jan. 1993 - Dec. 1995 (except Oct. 1995) P: Index to Scientic & Technical Proceedings: Jan. 1986 { May 1998 (except Nov. 1994) PA: Physics Abstracts: Jan. 1997 { Sep. 1998 1.1 Your contributions erroneous or missing? The bibliography database is updated on a regular basis and certain...

In recent years, research into ‘neighbourhood search ’ optimisation techniques such as simulated annealing, tabu search, and evolutionary algorithms has increased apace, resulting in a number of useful heuristic solution procedures for real-world and research combinatorial and function optimisation problems. Unfortunately, their selection and design remains a somewhat ad hoc procedure and very much an art. Needless to say, this shortcoming presents real difficulties for the future development and deployment of these methods. This thesis presents work aimed at resolving this issue of principled optimiser design. Driven by the needs of both the end-user and designer, and their knowledge of the problem domain and the search dynamics of these techniques, a semi-formal, structured, design methodology that makes full use of the available knowledge will be proposed, justified, and evaluated. This methodology is centred around a Knowledge Based System (KBS) view of neighbourhood search with a number of well-defined knowledge sources that relate to specific hypotheses about the problem domain. This viewpoint is complemented by a number of design heuristics that suggest a structured series of hillclimbing experiments which allow these results to be

In this paper, we investigate the relevance of two simple computational models of immunization in Time Dependent optimization (TDO) problems. At rst, we propose a Simple Arti cial Immune System (Sais) and experimentally compare its reactiveness and robustness to well known evolutionist approaches. Sais is then applied to a cyclic dynamical environment in order to evaluate its ability to feature an improved robustness when facing previously encountered optima. After discussing the limits of this approach, we propose a second algorithm (Yasais) designed to improve this so-called immunization process by stabilizing the way optima are memorized. Eventually, we discuss the results of both algorithms and underline how the latter features a quasi-optimal behavior. 1