Please read these Terms of Use carefully before accessing the assured-autonomy.org portal (assured-autonomy portal) of the Assured Autonomy Virtual Organization (the "AA-VO "). The aa-vo portal is operated by the Institute for Software Integrated Systems and administered by Vanderbilt University. Your access to the aa-vo portal is subject to your agreement to these Terms of Use. By accessing the aa-vo portal, you accept, without limitation or qualification, these Terms of Use.
Modification of the Agreement
We maintain the right to modify these Terms of Use and may do so by posting modifications on this page. Any modification is effective immediately upon posting the modification unless otherwise stated. Your continued use of the aa-vo portal following the posting of any modification signifies your acceptance of that modification. You should regularly visit this page to review the current Terms of Use.
Eligibility, Registration, Access, and Termination
The aa-vo portal is limited to non-commercial, educational, and research activities. Posting of spam messages or other commercial advertisements is a violation of these terms and may result in termination of your account.
Certain portions of the aa-vo portal are limited to registered users and/or allow a user to participate in online services by entering personal information. You agree that any information provided to the aa-vo portal in these areas will be complete and accurate, and that you will neither register under the name of nor attempt to enter the aa-vo portal under the name of another person or entity.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your user ID and password, if any, and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account or password. The AA-VO does not authorize use of your User ID by third parties.
We may, in our sole discretion, terminate or suspend your access to and use of the aa-vo portal without notice and for any reason, including for violation of these Terms of Use or for other conduct that we, in our sole discretion, believe to be unlawful or harmful to others. In the event of termination, you are no longer authorized to access the aa-vo portal.
Privacy and Confidentiality
We respect your privacy. We will never sell your e-mail address or other personally identifiable information to third parties, or make that information publicly available beyond the AA-VO community without your permission.
We are a scientific project and we provide a free service, so we do track your activities on this site. We combine your usage metrics with others to create an aggregate picture of how the site is being used, and we report usage publicly on our site and send similar quarterly reports to our program sponsors. However, such usage reports never contain detailed information about your activities as an individual without your prior consent.
We reserve the right to contact you to request additional information or to keep you updated on changes to the aa-vo. You may opt out of receiving newsletters and other non-essential communications by updating the settings in your account profile.
All resources, wiki articles, blogs, questions, answers, or other information posted or stored on the aa-vo portal is potentially available to all other users of the aa-vo portal. We do our best to restrict access to source code and to other private materials shared within groups. However, we are a research project and our software is constantly changing. We disclaim any responsibility or capability for the preservation of confidentiality of any information posted on this site. Do not post or store information on the aa-vo if you expect to or are obligated to protect the confidentiality of that information.
Conduct
You are responsible at all times for using the aa-vo portal in a manner that is legal, ethical, and not to the detriment of others. Once you have created an account, you are allowed to post materials and participate in other social networking features available on this site. All members are encouraged to help moderate content and click on "report abuse" or “feedback” links to report any material deemed offensive or inappropriate. If your posted material is reported as abusive, it will be withdrawn and subsequently reviewed by a site administrator. If the material is judged to be appropriate, it will be restored. Otherwise, it will be removed from the site, and depending on the inappropriate nature of the content, your account may be terminated.
All users must recognize that system resources on the aa-vo portal are limited. Quotas for disk storage, job submissions, and other limited resources are strictly enforced. By using the aa-vo portal, you agree to delete unused files and acknowledge that if you fail to do so, the files may be deleted for you. You may request an increase in system quotas, but you may not circumvent the policies put in place to manage resources.
By using the aa-vo portal, you agree that:
- You will not use the aa-vo portal to commit a criminal offense or to encourage others to conduct what would constitute a criminal offense or give rise to a civil liability;
- You will not violate any applicable law;
- You will not post or transmit any unlawful, threatening, libelous, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, profane, or otherwise objectionable content;
- You will not use the aa-vo portal to impersonate other parties or entities;
- You will not use the aa-vo portal to upload any content that contains a software virus, "Trojan Horse" or any other computer code, files, or programs that may alter, damage, or interrupt the functionality of aa-vo portal or the hardware or software of any other person who accesses aa-vo portal;
- You will not post any material on the aa-vo portal that infringes or violates the intellectual property rights of another;
- You will not redistribute resource materials posted on the aa-vo portal or create derivative works unless it is allowed by the license terms posted for a resource;
- You will not intentionally damage any content posted on the aa-vo portal;
- You will not claim a relationship with or speak for any business, association, or other organization for which you are not authorized to claim such a relationship;
- You will not post or transmit any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or other forms of solicitation;
- You will not use email addresses obtained or accessed through the aa-vo portal to transmit the same or substantially similar unsolicited message to multiple recipients without a valid purpose specifically related to the research and education mission of the AA-VO;
Disclaimers
THE AA-VO PORTAL AND ANY INFORMATION, PRODUCTS OR SERVICES ON IT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The AA-VO does not warrant, and hereby disclaims any warranties, either express or implied, with respect to the accuracy, adequacy or completeness of any good, service, or information obtained from the aa-vo portal. The AA-VO does not warrant that the aa-vo portal will operate in an uninterrupted or error-free manner or that the aa-vo is free of viruses or other harmful components. Use of the aa-vo portal is at your own risk.
You agree that the aa-vo portal administrator, Vanderbilt University, shall have no liability for any consequential, indirect, punitive, special or incidental damages, whether foreseeable or unforeseeable (including, but not limited to, claims for defamation, errors, loss of data, or interruption in availability of data), arising out of or relating to your use of the aa-vo portal or any resource that you access through the aa-vo portal.
The aa-vo portal hosts content from a number of authors. The statements and views of these authors are theirs alone, and do not reflect the stances or policies of the AA-VO or their sponsors, nor does their posting imply the endorsement of the AA-VO or their sponsors.
Choice of Law/Forum Selection/Attorney Fees
You agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to the AA-VO, whether based in contract, tort, statutory or other law, will be governed by federal law and by the laws of the State of Tennessee, excluding its conflicts of law provisions. You further consent to the personal jurisdiction of and exclusive venue in the federal and state courts located in and serving Davidson County, Tennessee as the exclusive legal forums for any such dispute.