Immune
Cognition, Micro-evolution,
and a Personal Account on Immune Engineering
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ABSTRACT
The immune system has a
complexity sometimes compared to that of the brain. The vast and diverse number
of molecules, cells and tissues, and their complicated pathways of
communication (with each other and other bodily systems),
endow the immune system with cognitive abilities capable of complementing
nervous cognition. In addition, there are several processes and theories used
to explain the immune functioning that bring to discussion several key aspects
of biology and biologically-inspired computing. This paper thus provides two
forms of studying the immune system. The first is more of an analytical
approach; it presents some cognitive views of the immune system, the intrinsic
evolutionary nature of an adaptive immune response, and how immunity influences
the evolution of species. The second study is of a synthetic nature; it
describes the immune engineering concept as a meta-synthetic process used for
the design of computational intelligence approaches by borrowing inspiration
from the immune systems. The latter discussion is a personal account,
describing how I used ideas from the immune system to solve complex engineering
problems. But these are supposed to provide the reader with some insights about
the development of biologically-inspired systems.
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