| NSC module > AIS applets |
These applets aren't simulations of the biological immune system -- they demonstrate visually how artificial immune system algorithms work. The elements of the immune system such as the receptor shapes of antibodies and antigens are usually represented in AIS with hamming (or occasionally real-valued) shape spaces. Here however, the position and shape of the cell representations are used to define the elements of the system. This means that the affinity between two elements in the system can be derived from the area in which they overlap each other. From matching antibodies with the elements which define the self, the selection algorithms should ensure that with each step, the repetoire of antibodies becomes more able to distinguish between self and non-self.