in a distributed computer environment software program modules may be located in both local and remote memory storage devices it is noted however that modification to the systems and methods described herein may well be made without deviating from the scope of the present invention moreover although developed within the general context of automatically controlling position of seismic spread elements those skilled in the art will appreciate from the discussion to follow that the principles of the invention may well be applied to other aspects of seismic data acquisition thus the systems and method described below are but illustrative implementations of a broader inventive concept all phrases derivations collocations and multiword expressions used herein in particular in the claims that follow are expressly not limited to nouns and verbs it is apparent that meanings are not just expressed by nouns and verbs or single words languages use a variety of ways to express content the existence of inventive concepts and the ways in which these are expressed varies in language cultures for example many lexicalized compounds in germanic languages are often expressed as adjective noun combinations noun preposition noun combinations or derivations in romanic languages the possibility to include phrases derivations and collocations in the claims is essential for high quality patents making it possible to reduce expressions to.