Matra Gravitational and Geophysical Laboratory (MGGL) has been established near Gyöngyösoroszi, Hungary in 2015, in the cavern system of an unused ore mine. The Laboratory is located at 88 m below the surface, with the aim to measure and analyse the advantages of the underground installation of third generation gravitational wave detectors. Specialized instruments have been installed to measure seismic, infrasound, electromagnetic noise, and the variation of the cosmic muon flux. In the preliminary (RUN-0) test period, March-August 2016, data collection has been accomplished. In this paper we describe the research potential of the MGGL, list the installed equipments and summarize the experimental results of RUN-0. Here we report RUN-0 data, that prepares systematic and synchronized data collection of the next run period.

This paper presents the solution for optimization of the ALICE TPC readout for running at full energy in the Run2 period after 2014. For the data taking with heavy ion beams an event readout rate of 400 Hz with a low dead time is envisaged for the ALICE central barrel detectors during these three years. A new component, the Readout Control Unit 2 (RCU2), is being designed to increase the present readout rate by a factor of up to 2.6. The immunity to radiation induced errors will also be significantly improved by the new design.

of the long term data taking, related to one of the proposed next generation ground-based gravitational detector's location is presented here. Results of seismic and infrasound noise, electromagnetic attenuation and cosmic muon radiation measurements are reported in the underground Matra Gravitational and Geophysical Laboratory near Gyöngyösoroszi, Hungary. The collected seismic data of more than two years is evaluated from the point of view of the Einstein Telescope, a proposed third generation underground gravitational wave observatory. Applying our results for the site selection will significantly improve the signal to nose ratio of the multi-messenger astrophysics era, especially at the low frequency regime.

As from the run 3 of CERN LHC scheduled in 2022, the upgraded ALICE experiment will use a Common Readout Unit (CRU) at the heart of the data acquisition system. The CRU, based on the PCIe40 hardware designed for LHCb, is a common interface between 3 main sub-systems: the front-end, the computing system, and the trigger and timing system. The 475 CRUs will interface 10 different sub-detectors and reduce the total data throughput from 3.5 TB/s to 635 GB/s. The ALICE common firmware framework supports data taking in continuous and triggered mode and forwards clock, trigger and slow control to the front-end electronics. In this paper, the architecture and the data-flow performance are presented.

This paper will present the first results from irradiation tests performed on the ALICE TPC Readout Control Unit 2 (RCU2). The RCU2 is developed in order to double the readout speed with respect to the present RCU1, which then will fulfil the requirements for LHC RUN2. While the present RCU1 is based on an SRAM based FPGA, whose configuration memory has shown to be sensitive to single event upsets, the newly released Flash-based Smartfusion2 FPGA from Microsemi has been chosen for the RCU2.