Embodiments are directed towards providing protection to DNS servers against DNS flood attacks by causing a requesting device to perform multiple DNS lookup requests for resolving a resource record. The receptacle 1 has a shield case 2 provided with connection terminals 31 therein, and the plug 5 has a shield case 6 provided with connection terminals 71 therein. In one embodiment, the gaming system determines a loyalty award to provide to a player and then determines an appropriate loyalty award sequence to utilize to provide the player the determined loyalty award, wherein the loyalty award sequence is determined based on the individual gaming device that the player is currently playing. The second yarn has a higher tension at the two nodes than the first yarn. The route manager recovers routes when a routing protocol application becomes inoperable by setting a timer when the routing protocol application becomes inoperable and purging routes when the route manager cannot confirm the routes upon expiration of the timer. Weights, which are each associated with one connection between two intermediate computation elements are equal to one another, and weights which are each associated with a connection between an intermediate computation element and an output computation element are equal to one another.