The influence of diversity in an immune-based algorithm to train MLP networks

Abstract

This paper has three main goals: i) to employ an immune-based algorithm to train multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks for pattern classification; ii) to combine the trained neural networks into ensembles of classifiers; and iii) to investigate the influence of diversity in the classification performance of individual and ensembles of classifiers. Two different classes of algorithms to train MLP are tested: bio-inspired, and gradient-based. Comparisons among all the training methods are presented in terms of classification accuracy and diversity of the solutions found. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.