Abstract: An absorbent oil collector is used as an oil spill combating apparatus and based on the use of an oil-absorbent material, e.g. a specially prepared wood fiber mass. In order to provide an oil collector of the kind concerned, which is flexible in that sense that its shape/size easily may be adapted to the actual oil spill situation and which may easily be picked up and collected when the absorbent material has been saturated with oil, the oil-absorbent material is encased within cylindrical stockings (1) of liquid-permeable material and which, along at least one longitudinal edge, is provided with catches, hooks or similar couplers (4) for the joining of a plurality of stockings (1), modules, forming a mat (5), which through rolling may be transformed into a section of a boom.

Abstract: A variable field storage station having a control or access port and a periodic recirculating memory. A character set is employed which includes beginning delimiter and ending delimiter characters such that data in the form of structures and substructures therein can be nested to any level. One or more cursors are employed to specify storage locations between structures and substructures in which additional structures or substructures may be added. If data currently resides at that location it is read out and restored at new locations. When a structure or substructure is deleted, that space is allocated to other structures or substructures. In this manner, nested fields can be expanded or contracted as required.