electronic and/or optical signal and information processing system for sensing and collecting data pertaining to environmental monitoring (gases, temperature, fire, smoke, flooding, earth quakes); machinery performance monitoring (vibration, acoustics, temperature, voltages, currents, pressures, flow rates and operating parameters); image analysis; biomedical testing (employing colorimetry, spectroscopy, banding, and/or image analysis); analytic measuring systems (electro-magnetic spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, chromatography, electrophoresis, and time domain reflectometry; and converting that data into information, analyzing and classifying the information and evaluating and reporting the potential significance of the classified event, sold as a unit comprising a sensor module for sensing the features of an event, processor module that further analyzes and evaluates the outputs from the sensor module, an event classifier that distinguishes and identifies the actual event from a generic grouping of similar events, and a threat evaluator which generates information regarding the importance or consequence of the actual event