  We present studies of the Coulomb blockade and Kondo regimes of transport
through a quantum dot connected to current leads through spin-polarizing
quantum point contacts (QPCs). This structure, arising from the effect of
lateral spin-orbit fields defining the QPCs, results in spin-polarized currents
even in the absence of external magnetic fields and greatly affects the
correlations in the dot. Using equation-of-motion and numerical renormalization
group calculations we obtain the conductance and spin polarization for this
system under different parameter regimes. We find that the system exhibits
spin-polarized conductance in both the Coulomb blockade and Kondo regimes, all
in the absence of applied magnetic fields. We analyze the role that the
spin-dependent tunneling amplitudes of the QPC play in determining the charge
and net magnetic moment in the dot. These effects, controllable by lateral gate
voltages, may provide an alternative approach for exploring Kondo correlations,
as well as possible spin devices
