Learning and optimization using the clonal selection principle

The clonal selection principle is used to explain the basic features of an adaptive immune response to an antigenic stimulus. It establishes the idea that only those cells that recognize the antigens (Ag's) are selected to proliferate. The selected cells are subject to an affinity maturation process, which improves their affinity to the selective Ag's. This paper proposes a computational implementation of the clonal selection principle that explicitly takes into account the affinity maturation of the immune response. The general algorithm, named CLONALG, is derived primarily to perform machine learning and pattern recognition tasks, and then it is adapted to solve optimization problems, emphasizing multimodal…