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Contest Details |
EPA Cyano Modeling Challenge > EPA Cyano Modeling Challenge
Official Rules & Regulations
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN, A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCE OF WINNING. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.
Entering the Competition
The Competition is brought to you by TopCoder, Inc. The Competition is open to all TopCoder members
who meet the criteria described below and who register for the Competition (each, a "Competitor").
When to start the Competition Round
TopCoder members must register for the competition round. Registration may occur at any time
from.
06.07.2014 11:00 PM EDT
to
06.28.2014 11:00 PM EDT
All competitors who have registered for the competition round will immediately be given
access
to the competition problem statement for that round. The competition round will begin
at
06.07.2014 11:00 PM EDT
which is the earliest time that any member will be given access to the problem statement.
Submission Requirements
All competitors registered for a specific Marathon Match will see a Submit option
for that event. Clicking the Submit link will take you to a page that will
allow you to paste in a solution, select the proper language and either submit
(for compilation and testing) or save your code. When the Submit button is
selected, the code will be immediately compiled. Any compilation messages
or errors will be shown in the Messages Area. If the compilation was
successful, the submission will then be placed on a queue for automated testing.
Example test cases will not be tested. When your submission has been processed,
you will receive an email indicating such and your place in the standings will
be adjusted accordingly. During the submission phase, overall ranking and
provisional score are the only pieces of information that will be made
available. A given competitor will only be allowed to submit once every 7
2 hours. Additionally, if a competitor has a pending submission on the
testing queue it must finish testing before they may submit again.
Clicking the Test Examples button will immediately compile and place your submission on a queue for automated testing of just the example test cases. Detailed feedback will be made available when the tests are complete, including processing time, score, and any output from the program. Competitors may submit test examples once every 15 minutes. The competitors rank and overall score will not be updated.
The prize purse for this challenge is 15,000 USD! The 5 highest scorers in this round will receive compensation for their submissions as follows:
| 1st | $6,000 |
| 2nd | $4,000 |
| 3rd | $2,750 |
| 4th | $1,500 |
| 5th | $750 |
Competitors agree, represent and certify that no portion of any money awarded in connection with this Competition has been or will be paid, by or on behalf of Competitor, to any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of the United States Congress, an officer or employee of the United States Congress, or an employee of a Member of the United States Congress in connection with the awarding of any Federal contract, the making of any Federal grant, the making of any Federal loan, the entering into of any cooperative agreement, and the extension, continuation, renewal, amendment, or modification of any Federal contract, grant, loan or cooperative agreement.
Competitors must be registered members of TopCoder, and also register for this Competition. By participating in this Competition, you agree to be bound by these Rules and to all decisions of TopCoder, which are final, binding and conclusive in all matters. As a condition of participating in this Competition and by submitting a Submission, each Competitor agrees to permit TopCoder to describe, publicize, and link to your entry (as applicable). Competitors must not cheat; all ideas for Submissions must be solely the Competitor's. Unless otherwise explicitly permitted, Competitors may not collaborate on a Submission or in relation to this Competition in any way. Unless otherwise explicitly permitted, Competitors may not copy or include code from any third party, including "open source" code or other code that is or may be subject to license terms or restrictions.
IN ORDER TO BE ELIGIBLE, YOU WARRANT THAT (UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED IN THE PROBLEM STATEMENT) YOUR SUBMISSION FOR THIS COMPETITION:
- Does not include or anticipate the inclusion of any content that is in violation of or infringes third party intellectual property rights including, but not limited to copyrights, including music copyrights, trademarks, and rights of publicity.
- Is free and clear of all liens, claims, encumbrances or demands of any third parties.
- Does not include or anticipate the inclusion of any unsuitable or offensive content, including nudity, sexually explicit, disparaging, libelous or other inappropriate content.
- Has not been entered in previous challenges, or won previous awards.
- Has not been published or distributed previously in any media.
- Is suitable for a general audience.
- Does not contain any claims that are not and cannot be substantiated or that would be false and/or misleading to a reasonable consumer.
By participating in this competition, Competitor warrants that no impediment exists to Competitor's participating in this Competition and that participating in this Competition will not interfere with your performance of, or breach, any other agreement or obligations with any third party, including but not limited to, an employer, if any.
The winner of the competition will be the competitor that scores the most points across all competitors who participate. All decisions relating to the viability of submissions, the ranking of submissions and all other matters pertaining to the competition shall be within the sole discretion of TopCoder or its designee and shall be final and binding in all respects.
By participating in a Marathon Match, a winner releases and agrees to hold harmless TopCoder, its affiliates, subsidiaries, sponsors, advertising and promotion agencies, and prize suppliers, and all of their respective directors, officers, employees, representatives and agents, from and against any and all liability for any loss, property damage or damage to person, including without limitation, death and injury, due in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from or arising out of participation in this competition, or participation in any competition-related activity, or the receipt, use or misuse of a prize.
TopCoder, in its sole discretion, reserves the right to disqualify any person tampering with the entry process, the operation of the Web site, the competition process, or is otherwise in violation of the rules. TopCoder reserves the right at any time to disqualify a Submission from a Competition where, acting in good faith, it believes there are reasonable grounds to warrant disqualification. For example, TopCoder's determination that the Submission does not provide the functionality described or required, or the Submission appears to be purposely designed to circumvent these Rules or the spirit of the Competition would be grounds for disqualification. TopCoder reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the competition if it is not capable of completion as planned for any reason, including infection by computer virus, bugs, tampering, unauthorized intervention or technical failures of any sort.
As a condition of winning and redeeming a cash prize, Competitors will be required to submit, among other things, a completed TopCoder Competition Assignment Agreement, if one is not already on file with TopCoder, AND a one to two-page description explaining how the algorithm for the winning submission works. The description must be submitted within 7 days after the challenge results are published. Questions sent by email from TopCoder requesting clarification to the description must be answered within 3 days. If the description or a response to a clarification request is not received, TopCoder reserves the right to disqualify the submission.
This Competition is open to all members of the TopCoder website, who have agreed to the terms thereof, and who are at least
18 years of age. Competitors must be:
(i) a U.S. citizen,
(ii) a lawful permanent resident of the U.S.,
(iii) a temporary resident, asylee, refugee of the U.S., or have a lawfully issued work authorization card permitting unrestricted employment in the U.S., or
(iv) a non-U.S. resident authorized in the country in which the member resides while participating in this Competition to perform services as an independent contractor.
A Competitor is not eligible for this Competition if he/she is a resident of the Quebec province of Canada, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Sudan or Syria. In addition a Competitor is not eligible for this Competition if the Competitor is on the Specially Designated National list promulgated and amended, from time to time, by the United States Department of the Treasury.
All competitors must be registered members of TopCoder, and must have agreed to the rules on this page prior to participating in this competition. Competitors must abide by the Terms of Use of TopCoder's website at www.topcoder.com. Violation of the Terms of Use may result in disqualification from this Competition, and/or further consequences as determined in TopCoder's sole discretion.
Employees of TopCoder and those involved in the development, production (including prize suppliers and sponsors), implementation and distribution of this competition and their advertising or promotion agencies, parent companies, service providers, agents, officers, subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other persons or entities directly associated with the competition and members of the immediate families and/or persons living in the same household as such persons, are ineligible to enter the competition.
You hereby acknowledge and agree that TopCoder owns, solely and exclusively, all right, title and interest, including all intellectual property rights, in and to the information posted on TopCoders website(s). If TopCoder compensates you for your submission, then you agree to irrevocably and unconditionally transfer and assign to TopCoder all right, title and interest you have, may have or acquire in, such submission, and you agree to execute and deliver such documents, certificates, assignments and other writings, and take such other actions as may be necessary or desirable to vest in TopCoder the ownership rights granted to TopCoder hereunder. If TopCoder does not compensate you for your submission, then you retain any and all rights to ownership of such material submitted to TopCoder. TopCoder will not gain ownership of this material. However, by submitting any submission or any other material to TopCoder, you hereby grant a perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to TopCoder to use, reproduce and publish such documents, materials or source code for commercial and/or non-commercial use.
You further agree that any and all works of authorship created, authored or developed by you hereunder which TopCoder compensates you for shall be deemed to be "works made for hire" within the meaning of the United States Copyright Law and, as such, all rights therein including copyright shall belong solely and exclusively to TopCoder from the time of their creation. To the extent any such work of authorship may not be deemed to be a work made for hire, you agree to, and do hereby, irrevocably and unconditionally transfer and assign to TopCoder all right, title and interest including copyright in and to such work.
You agree that if TopCoder is unable because of your unavailability, or for any other reason, to secure your signature to apply for or to pursue any application for any United States or foreign patents, mask work, copyright or trademark registrations covering the assignments to TopCoder above, then you hereby irrevocably designate and appoint TopCoder and its duly authorized officers and agents as your agent and attorney in fact, to act for and in your behalf and stead to execute and file any such applications and to do all other lawfully permitted acts to further the prosecution and issuance of patents, copyright, mask work and trademark registrations thereon with the same legal force and effect as if executed by your authorized agent.
Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed as granting you any right or license under any intellectual property right of TopCoder (including any rights TopCoder may have in any patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks or any trade secrets), by implication, estoppel or otherwise, except as expressly set forth herein.
By submitting source code and/or documentation in response to competitions posted on TopCoders website(s) and/or otherwise participating in forum and newsgroup discussions on TopCoders customer and developer forums, you agree to indemnify TopCoder and any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities, TopCoders officers and employees, and officers and employees of any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities and hold them harmless from any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys fees, arising from your use of TopCoders website(s) and/or the materials gained from TopCoders website(s) or directly from TopCoder, including any material (including third party material) that you post on TopCoders website(s) or in any news forums and any services or products available through TopCoders website(s). In addition, you hereby release TopCoder and any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities, TopCoders officers and employees, and officers and employees of any parent, subsidiary or affiliated entities from any and all claims, demands, debts, obligations, damages (actual or consequential), costs, and expenses of any kind or nature whatsoever, whether known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed, that you may have against them arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and/or to any services or products available at TopCoders website(s). You hereby agree to waive all laws that may limit the efficacy of such releases.
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These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut. You hereby agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the State of Connecticut. To the extent that applicable laws have mandatory application to these Terms or give you the right to bring action in any other courts, the above limitations may not apply to you. Use of TopCoders website(s) and participation in projects posted on TopCoders website(s) are unauthorized in any jurisdiction that does not give full effect to all provisions of these Terms.
If any provision or portion of these rules and regulations are held illegal, invalid, or unenforceable, in whole or in part, it shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to correct any deficiencies or replaced with a provision which is as close as is legally permissible to the provision found invalid or unenforceable and shall not affect the legality, validity or enforceability of any other provisions or portions of these Terms.
TopCoder reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to revoke any and all privileges associated with accessing and/or participating in the projects posted on its website(s), and to take any other action it deems appropriate including but not limited to terminating or suspending your use of www.topcoder.com and/or www.topcodersoftware.com for no reason or any reason whatsoever, including improper use of its website(s) or failure to comply with these Terms or the Terms of Use of TopCoders websites, which are incorporated herein by reference.
The competition is void in whole or in part where prohibited by law.
A winners list of coder handles for all competitions will be available on the web site at http://www.topcoder.com displayed for at least 3 months after the end of the competition.
This competition is brought to you by TopCoder, Inc., 95 Glastonbury Blvd, Glastonbury, CT 06033.
If you have any questions regarding these Terms, contact us at service@topcoder.com