Towards a Conceptual Framework for Artificial Immune Systems

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 meta-framework, thereby allowing the building of a specific computational framework that is inspired by biology, but not restricted to any one particular biological domain.