Animal Machine Learning (AniMaL) is a proprietary computing service for genomic selection, which is operated by QTLmax Global, LLC. Your use of AniMaL is solely available upon your acceptance of the Terms of Service.
1. Use of AniMaL service
To use the AniMaL, you must (i) sign up at the AniMaL website, (ii) and receive a membership to the AniMaL service. Once you have the membership, you can download the AniMaL Workbench that can run on Microsoft Windows only, with which you can access and use the AniMaL computing resources for your livestock genomic selection. AniMaL computing resources means the cloud-computing settings dedicated to the AniMaL service environment. Through the AniMaL Workbench, you can communicate with the AniMaL cloud for upload, download, and analyses. When it comes to membership approval, we give due considerations to the accuracy of your information. In the sign-up process, we do not require you to create your password to the AniMaL service because we issue to your email a one-time password each time you connect to the AniMaL service. You are responsible for the security of your email and one-time password. The AniMaL service is free of charge for a limited time period. The free-of-charge policy aims to provide potential customers with risk-free choices in introducing the AniMaL service to their business. Before the AniMaL service is switched to being commercial, we will notify our members.
2. Cancellation and Termination
If you want to cancel your membership to the AniMaL service, you can stop using the AniMaL service for 60 days. Then your registration in our user database will be automatically deleted. It is important to note that we reserve the right to terminate your AniMaL membership at our own discretion, with or without notice. When we reckon that you attempted to harm the AniMaL service allegedly with malicious intents, or that any critical reasons are invoked.
3. User Data Preparation and Security
If you have SNP sets for BLUPF90, you can use the AniMaL service directly. A noteworthy goodness of the AniMaL system is that it does not require strict alignment of SNP starting position across all rows, which substantially relaxes your data preparation burden. The data-formating works are conducted on your end. Files to examplify the input format of the AniMaL service will be given in our AniMaL portal website upon your membership approval. We have no ownership of your data sets and no right to redistribute your data sets. However, we may keep your data sets for 72 hours for the purpose of scrutinizing the cause if the AniMaL cloud envirenments are damaged allegedly by external influences. After 72 hours, all data sets submitted will be automatically deleted. When it comes to your data security, it is noteworthy that the input data set is in a greatly disguised format with no exact SNP codes, no SNP positions and no trait names. That is to say, a third-party entity cannot benefit from your data sets, even if the entity accidently have obtained yours.