The 'shape-space' and 'affinity landscape' immunological paradigms

The 'shape-space' formalism and fitness-inspired affinity landscape are two geometric paradigms of theoretical and computational immunity that have found popular application in the field of artificial immune systems. This work reviews the inception and early application of these paradigms in theoretical immunology and reviews a framework that unifies both ideas for use investigating artificial immune systems with regard to general application not limited to pattern recognition.