Patent ID: 8341164

Claim:
A memory for storing data for access by an application program being executed on a computer system, comprising: data structure stored in said memory, said data structure comprising: a plurality of nodes, each node comprising: an information field containing an item of information; and a time of life interval field specifying a time of life interval for the node, the time of life interval having a beginning point and an ending point; and a plurality of directed edges; each directed edge comprising a direction, each directed edge connecting two of the plurality of nodes, such that one of the plurality of nodes comprises a parent node, and a second of the plurality of nodes comprises a child node, the direction of the directed edge indicating which of the two connected nodes is the parent node and which is the child node, the data structure corresponding to a plurality of data packets for each stored node or directed edge including a plurality of associated data fields and size fields indicating sizes of the associated data fields; wherein each parent node comprises a first time of life interval comprising a first beginning point and a first ending point, and each child node comprises a second time of life interval comprising a second beginning point and a second ending point, and wherein the second beginning point is required to be later than or equal in time to the first beginning point of the parent node to which the child node is connected, and the second ending point is required to be earlier than or equal in time to the first ending point of the parent node to which the child node is connected.