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The DEVONtechnology consists of a kernel and several layers. Together they perform all the underlying computing, from 'simple' data handling to complex signal processing. Kernel: The kernel is the foundation for all layers and applications and is responsible for data handling, semantic and associative data processing, signal processing, fast statistic analyses and all fuzzy algorithms. It has to be as fast, flexible, and extensible as possible; it is 64-bit aware and uses a generic, proprietary file format (see above) allowing it to verify and repair low level data consistency, featuring logarithmic growth of the database and logarithmic speed decrease with increasing database size. The DEVONtechnology kernel is Unicode-aware, completely language-independent and self-optimizing and self-organizing. Layers: The layers form a shell around the kernel and provide high-level functions for the applications built on top of them. The database layer, for example, is used to store and organize data and supports all kinds of relations (1:n, n:1, n:n), hierarchies and freeform databases. No indexing or primary keys are required, strings can be unlimited in size and it's possible at any time to extend the range of pre-defined data types (Boolean, character, float, double, signed, unsigned, string, date, time, blob, color, size, and point). Another layer, the XML layer, makes it easy to handle XML code within the DEVONtechnology; it has a very small overhead, compared to DOM parsers or available XML databases, requires no indexing and supports the tight integration of other databases (and vice versa).