SEARCH FOR SLOWLY MOVING MAGNETIC MONOPOLES WITH THE MACRO DETECTOR

A search for slowly moving magnetic monopoles in the cosmic radiation was conducted from October 1989 to November 1991 using the large liquid scintillator detector subsystem of the first supermodule of the MACRO detector at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory. The absence of candidates established an upper limit on the monopole flux of 5.6 x 10(-15) cm-2 sr-1 s-1 at 90% confidence level in the velocity range of 10(-4) less than or similar to beta < 4 x 10(-3). This result places a new constraint on the abundance of monopoles trapped in our solar system

The effectiveness of natalizumab vs fingolimod-A comparison of international registry studies

BACKGROUND: Natalizumab and fingolimod were the first preparations recommended for disease breakthrough in priorly treated relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Of three published head-to-head studies two showed that natalizumab is the more effective to prevent relapses and EDSS worsening. METHODS: By re-analyzing original published results from MSBase, France, and Denmark using uniform methodologies, we aimed at identifying the effects of differences in methodology, in the MS-populations, and at re-evaluating the differences in effectiveness between the two drugs. We gained access to copies of the individual amended databases and pooled all data. We used uniform inclusion/exclusion criteria and statistical methods with Inverse Probability Treatment Weighting. RESULTS: The pooled analyses comprised 968 natalizumab- and 1479 fingolimod treated patients. The on-treatment natalizumab/fingolimod relapse rate ratio was 0.77 (p=0.004). The hazard ratio (HR) for a first relapse was 0.82 (p=0.030), and the HR for sustained EDSS improvement was 1.4 (p=0.009). There were modest differences between each of the original published studies and the replication study, but the conclusions of the three original studies remained unchanged: in two of them natalizumab was more effective, but in the third there was no difference between natalizumab and fingolimod. CONCLUSION: The results were largely invariant to the epidemiological and statistical methods but differed between the MS populations. Generally, the advantage of natalizumab was confirmed

SEARCH FOR STELLAR GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE BY MACRO - CHARACTERISTICS AND RESULTS

The first MACRO lower supermodule has been sensitive to antineutrinos from stellar gravitational collapse since spring 1989. The results with the 44 tonnes of liquid scintillator which have been instrumented to search for stellar gravitational collapse are discussed here

MUON ASTROPHYSICS WITH THE MACRO DETECTOR

Muon events collected with the streamer tube system of MACRO have been used to study the vertical muon intensity and to search for astrophysical point sources. New upper limits on the muon fluxes coming from source candidates have been obtained. The mu pair distance distribution and multimuon rates are presented and compared with Monte Carlo predictions for different primary cosmic rays composition models

STUDY OF THE COSMIC-RAY PRIMARY COMPOSITION AT E0-SIMILAR-TO-1000TEV BY EAS-TOP AND MACRO AT GRAN-SASSO

An analysis of the coincident deep underground muon data and of the e.m. component of Extensive Air Showers (EAS) as measured by the MACRO and EAS-TOP experiments at Gran Sasso is presented. Constraints on the primary cosmic ray composition are obtained, with the use of an interaction model that is based on collider data. The possibility of extrapolating the directly measured energy spectra to our energy range is tested

COINCIDENT OBSERVATION OF AIR CERENKOV LIGHT BY A SURFACE ARRAY AND MUON BUNDLES BY A DEEP UNDERGROUND DETECTOR

We report on the simultaneous observation of atmospheric Cerenkov light by a prototype five telescope array, GRACE (Gran Sasso Air Cerenkov Experiment) with deep underground muons in the MACRO (Monopole Astrophysics and Cosmic Ray Observatory). The telescope array was deployed at Campo Imperatore above the Gran Sasso Laboratory for a run completed in the fall of 1992. The total live time for the combined surface-underground operation was similar to 100 h during which more than 300 events were seen in coincidence. The efficacy of this technique to monitor the electromagnetic and penetrating muon components of a cosmic-ray-induced cascade is discussed