{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,20]],"date-time":"2026-08-20T17:25:44Z","timestamp":1787246744177,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,20]],"date-time":"2026-08-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1787184000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Biomimetics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Classification is a fundamental technique in data mining that predicts categorical labels by analyzing input features. However, training Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) using traditional methods often encounters challenges, such as getting stuck in local minima and slow convergence. To address these issues, this study proposes a novel hybrid model, IPA-ANN, which integrates the Immune Plasma Algorithm (IPA) to optimize the ANN\u2019s connection weights and biases. The IPA, inspired by the immune plasma treatment process, utilizes a unique donor-receiver mechanism to balance exploration and exploitation in the search space. The proposed model was evaluated on nine benchmark datasets from the UCI repository and compared with 18 state-of-the-art metaheuristic algorithms, including Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO), Differential Evolution (DE), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Experimental results were analyzed using accuracy, F1-score, confusion matrices, and convergence graphs. The findings indicate that IPA-ANN achieves competitive and stable classification performance across different datasets while demonstrating favorable convergence characteristics in several cases. Furthermore, the study investigates the influence of donor\u2013receiver parameters on the optimization process, highlighting the adaptability of the proposed framework. The reliability of these findings was further examined through repeated stratified 5-fold cross-validation and paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with Holm\u2013Bonferroni correction on representative datasets, confirming that a subset of the observed performance differences are statistically significant, and through a computational cost analysis showing that IPA-ANN incurs no additional overhead relative to the majority of the compared algorithms. This study contributes to the literature by presenting the first documented application of IPA in ANN training and by providing a modular infrastructure for future metaheuristic-based ANN optimization studies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/biomimetics11080597","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,20]],"date-time":"2026-08-20T16:05:19Z","timestamp":1787241919000},"page":"597","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["IPA-ANN: A Novel Framework for Optimizing Artificial Neural Network Weights and Biases Using Immune Plasma Algorithm"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6739-7653","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sercan","family":"Demirci","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ondokuz May\u0131s University, Atakum, Samsun 55139, Turkey"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0831-7825","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Durmu\u015f \u00d6zkan","family":"\u015eahin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ondokuz May\u0131s University, Atakum, Samsun 55139, Turkey"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"G\u00fclcan","family":"Y\u0131ld\u0131z","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ondokuz May\u0131s University, Atakum, Samsun 55139, Turkey"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9670-4173","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Do\u011fan","family":"Y\u0131ld\u0131z","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ondokuz May\u0131s University, Atakum, Samsun 55139, Turkey"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Samad","family":"Hasanl\u0131","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Engineering, Institute of Graduate Studies, Ondokuz May\u0131s University, Atakum, Samsun 55139, Turkey"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"00133","DOI":"10.1051\/bioconf\/20249700133","article-title":"An overview of machine learning classification techniques","volume":"97","author":"Alnuaimi","year":"2024","journal-title":"BIO Web Conf."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"509","DOI":"10.35234\/fumbd.1632540","article-title":"Makine \u00d6\u011frenmesi Algoritmalar\u0131n\u0131n Performans\u0131n\u0131 Art\u0131rmak i\u00e7in Metasezgisel Algoritma Tabanl\u0131 \u00d6znitelik Se\u00e7imi","volume":"37","year":"2025","journal-title":"F\u0131rat \u00dcniv. 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