Abstract: This invention provides methods for extracting platelets, compositions obtained therefore, and methods for using the same.

Abstract: The present application relates to N-chlorinated cationic compounds of Formula I or a salt thereof, and associated compositions and methods of use as antimicrobial agents.

Abstract: Systems and methods for mapping extension taxonomy elements to a standard base taxonomy and thereafter making use thereof are provided. According to one embodiment, a list of base taxonomy elements is displayed on a display device. A taxonomy map is also displayed on the display device. The taxonomy map includes information regarding one or more extended taxonomy elements of a reporting entity that are not mapped to any base taxonomy elements. Responsive to one or more user input events corresponding to a selection of a base taxonomy element and corresponding to a request to map an extended taxonomy element to the selected base taxonomy element, the compatibility of the selected base taxonomy element with the extended taxonomy element is validated. If the compatibility is affirmed, then an association is formed between the extended taxonomy element and the selected base taxonomy element.

Abstract: Systems and methods for extracting recoverable materials (e.g., petroleum and/or other hydrocarbons) from source materials (e.g., tar sands) are provided. According to one embodiment a method is provided for extracting bitumen from tar sand. Tar sands are introduced into a batch or continuous processing plasma furnace. The bitumen contained within the tar sand is then vaporized by exposing the tar sands to a plasma energy field that penetrates the tar sands. The vaporized bitumen is captured for subsequent processing.

Abstract: This invention provides a system and methods for providing liquid to a plant or a seed that can germinate into a plant. The system includes: a liquid delivery device; an actuator; a vessel; and a vessel support; wherein the actuator is operable to cause the liquid delivery device to deliver the liquid to the plant or seed only when the vessel is brought into proximity with the vessel support.

Abstract: A flexible, scalable hardware and software platform that allows a service provider to easily provide internet services, virtual private network services, firewall services, etc., to a plurality of customers. One aspect provides a method and system for delivering security services. This includes connecting a plurality of processors in a ring configuration within a first processing system, establishing a secure connection between the processors in the ring configuration across an internet protocol (IP) connection to a second processing system to form a tunnel, and providing both router services and host services for a customer using the plurality of processors in the ring configuration and using the second processing system, a packet routing system and method is described that includes a processor identifier in each packet to route the packets to a physical processor, and a logical queue identifier to route the packets to the destination object within that processor.

Abstract: Methods and systems for managing a service provider switch are provided. According to one embodiment, a network operating system (NOS) is provided on each processor element (PE) of the switch. The NOS includes an object manager (OM) responsible for managing global software object groups, managing software object configurations, managing local software objects and groups and routing control information between address spaces based on locations of software objects. The OM performs management plane communications among software objects by way of system calls. The OM performs data plane communications among software objects by way of object-to-object channels. The switch is provisioned with a network-based managed IP service for a particular customer of the service provider by pushing the service onto an object-to-object channel that has been established between a first software object and a second software object of the software objects.

Abstract: Methods and systems for processing outbound fax messages in an efficient and scalable manner are provided. According to one embodiment, an Internet fax system receives a request to deliver a fax message. Source files representing content to be included as part of the fax message are stored to a shared storage area accessible by imaging systems and fax processing resources. An imaging system is selected to convert the source files into a digital representation suitable for faxing. A work request identifying the selected imaging system is stored on a centralized work queue within a database. The imaging systems poll the centralized work queue to retrieve pending work requests. Responsive to identifying the work request, the selected imaging system converts the source files, associates the resulting digital representation with an outbound fax job and causes the fax message to be delivered by submitting the outbound fax job to a fax modem.

Abstract: A flexible, scalable hardware and software platform that allows a service provider to easily provide internet services, virtual private network services, firewall services, etc., to a plurality of customers. One aspect provides a method and system for delivering security services. This includes connecting a plurality of processors in a ring configuration within a first processing system, establishing a secure connection between the processors in the ring configuration across an internet protocol (IP) connection to a second processing system to form a tunnel, and providing both router services and host services for a customer using the plurality of processors in the ring configuration and using the second processing system. A secure communications tunnel is formed by routing all packets for the tunnel through an encrypting router at the sending end to obtain encrypted packets, and routing the encrypted packets through a decrypting router at the receiving end of an IP connection.

Abstract: Methods and systems for processing inbound fax messages in an efficient and scalable manner are provided. According to one embodiment, an inbound fax call is received at a telecommunications system of an Internet fax system. The inbound fax call includes a source and destination address and a fax signal. The inbound fax call is switched to a call mediation system, which determines desired technical call processing capabilities for processing the fax signal. A subset of fax processing resources that have the desired technical call processing capabilities are identified from among multiple fax processing resources associated with the call mediation system. The inbound fax call is switched to a selected fax processing resource of the identified subset. The fax signal is translated by the selected fax processing resource into a digital representation. And, the digital representation is made available to one or more users associated with the particular subscriber.

Abstract: Circuits and methods are provided for detecting, identifying and/or removing undesired content. According to one embodiment, a method for virus processing is provided. A general purpose processor, communicably coupled to a virus processing hardware accelerator, receives a data segment. The general purpose processor causes the data segment to be stored to a first memory. The general purpose processor directs the virus processing hardware accelerator, communicably coupled to the first memory and to the second memory, to perform a virus scan of the data segment based on one or more virus signatures stored in a second memory. The first memory includes a first virus signature compiled for execution on the general purpose processor. The second memory includes virus signatures, each of which include at least one primitive instruction and at least one Content Pattern Recognition (CPR) instruction stored at contiguous locations, compiled for execution by the virus processing hardware accelerator.

Abstract: Systems and methods for disrupting the operational capabilities and the distribution capabilities of computer viruses are provided. According to one embodiment, an execution environment is created that makes a computer system appear unique to incoming viruses. Responsive to installation of a valid program, the program is registered for execution by transforming it from an executable form into a locally unique form based on a diversity mechanism. Responsive to detecting an attempted execution of a program and prior to execution of the program, it is transformed by causing a protected pre-execution process of the computer system, which implements the diversity mechanism in the form of an inverse transform, to be applied. If the program was previously validly registered, then the transformation based on the diversity mechanism results in an executable program that will execute properly on the computer system; otherwise the transformation results in an executable program that will fail to correctly execute.

Abstract: A computerized system and method for processing network content associated with multiple virtual domains. The processing may include anti-malware scanning and/or content filtering. The content associated with multiple domains may be processed in the same daemon process. In response to connection requests from virtual domains, the service process creates separate sockets to communicate with each virtual domain. A global configuration management module is used to provide configuration parameters for each session to the service process. A logging manager processes both the global logs and the logs from each virtual domain. Alternatively, the service process may initiate other service processes to handle incoming connections from one or more virtual domains, in order to better utilize resources in a multiple-CPU environment.

Abstract: Systems and methods for a multi-level advanced caching engine that is designed for processing a high-volume of transaction data and ensuring high performance query processing is provided. A folio is interactively updated on-demand for an organizational hierarchy with aggregated information from pre-summarized balances. Responsive to user-generated folio-level queries which depend upon balance values not currently stored within the financial transaction system, multiple instances of balances are dynamically created and populated with new balance values based on the user-generated folio-level query. Responsive to new transaction data, clean balance values are maintained within the dependent balances by regenerating the associated balance values.

Abstract: A mechanism is disclosed for enabling load balancing to be achieved in a network. In one implementation, load balancing is implemented on a “per flow” basis. At the time that a new flow starts, a path is selected. Packets associated with the flow are thereafter sent along that particular path. As the packets associated with the flow are forwarded along the particular path, a congestion metric is determined for the particular path as well as for a set of one or more other paths. Based at least partially upon the congestion metrics, a determination is made as to whether the flow should be moved. If so, then the flow is moved to an alternate path. By determining the congestion metrics for the multiple paths, and by moving the flow in response, it is possible to adapt to changing traffic conditions to keep the loads on the paths relatively balanced.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for managing multicast Internet Protocol (IP) flows. According to one embodiment, a multicast IP flow is identified at an interface of a network device using information from a packet header. For any newly identified multicast IP flow, if flow-specific services are required, a new first transmit control block (TCB), which includes one or more attributes relating to flow-specific services required by the newly identified multicast IP flow, is created for the newly identified multicast IP flow. Otherwise, if flow-specific services are not required by the newly identified multicast IP flow, a default second TCB, which excludes any attributes relating to flow-specific services and which includes one or more attributes related to a virtual interface (VI) serving as an outbound interface (OIF) for the newly identified multicast IP flow, is used.

Abstract: Methods, systems and data structure for facilitating identification of nodes in a ring network are provided. According to one embodiment, a data structure is stored on a computer-readable storage media of a node (e.g., a blade) participating in a ring network, within a multi-blade system, for example. The data structure includes a packet-ring master field, a control-node master field, a node characteristics field, a connection state field, a node identification field and a marker field. The packet-ring master field indicates whether the node is a current packet-ring master. The control-node master field indicates whether the node is a control-node master. The node characteristics field specifies per-node characteristics. The connection state field indicates a current connection state of the node. The node identification field specifies the node. The marker field indicates whether the data structure is a node discovery marker.

Abstract: Methods and systems for processing application-level content of network service protocols are described. According to one embodiment, a network connection is redirected by a networking subsystem implemented within a kernel of an operating system of a firewall device to a proxy module within the firewall device that is configured to support a network service protocol associated with the network connection. The proxy module retrieves one or more content processing configuration schemes associated with a matching firewall policy for the network service protocol and the network connection. The content processing configuration schemes each include multiple content processing configuration settings for each of one or more network service protocols.

Abstract: The present invention provides crystalline solid and amorphous forms of (?)-halofenate. The crystalline solid forms may be used in various pharmaceutical compositions, and are particularly effective for the prevention and/or treatment of conditions associated with blood lipid deposition in a mammal, particularly those diseases related to Type 2 diabetes and hyperlipidemia. The invention also relates to a method for preventing or treating Type 2 diabetes and hyperlipidemia in a mammal comprising the step of administering a therapeutically effective amount of crystalline solid and amorphous forms of (?)-halofenate.

Abstract: A gas tap for controlling the flow of a gas to a cooking appliance. In one embodiment, the gas tap includes a body and a rotatable regulation member positioned within the valve body, the valve body having a stationary groove for the inlet of gas from an exterior wall surface to an interior wall surface of the body, the regulation member having a passage opening for the inlet of gas from an exterior surface to an interior cavity of the regulation member, the passage opening moving with an angular rotation of the regulation member. The groove and passage opening are shaped, dimensioned and positioned relative to one another such that the regulation of an intermediate gas flow Qgra (a flow between Qmax and Qmin) is proportional to the angular displacement of the rotatable regulation member.