A resource-efficient event algebra

Events play many roles in computer systems, ranging from hardware interrupts, over event-based software architecture, to monitoring and managing of complex systems. In many applications, however, individual event occurrences are not the main point of concern, but rather the occurrences of certain event patterns. Such event patterns can be defined by means of an event algebra, i.e., expressions representing the patterns of interest are built from simple events and operators such as disjunction, sequence, etc.We propose a novel event algebra with intuitive operators (a claim which is supported by a number of algebraic properties). We also present an efficient detection algorithm that correctly detects any expression with bounded memory, which makes this algebra particularly suitable for resource-constrained applications such as embedded systems.