---------- Replies to Referee ---------------------------------------
> This paper reports the first search for electron-type neutrino
> appearance at the atmospheric oscillation length.  It does not break
> new ground in that it is about a factor of 2 less sensitive than
> searches from electron-type neutrino disappearance from reactor
> experiments, specifically the CHOOZ experiment.  Nonetheless, this
> type of experiment will become very important in the coming decades
> and I think there will be general interest in seeing these results.
> Thus, I recommend that it be published after fixing a few problems
> that I outline below.
> 
> The first problem is that the authors use a 2-flavor formalism rather
> than the 3-flavor formalism that the physics requires. This is not a
> real problem except that it will be confusing to the general reader,
> since their notation is not standard. In fact, I was confused in
> reading the abstract because I assumed that sin^2(2th_mu-e) was their
> notation for the much more common sin^2(2th_13). It is not. These two
> values differ nominally by a factor of 2, although the true variation
> is not known and could be significantly larger or smaller (due to the
> sin^2(th_23) in the 3-flavor oscillation formula, matter effects, and
> CP effects). Most authors get around these problems by defining a
> sin^2(2th_13)_eff. I would urge the authors to do this in the
> abstract, to warn readers that the limit is closer to 0.30 than to
> 0.15, in the standard way of thinking about these limits (e.g.
> comparisons to CHOOZ). This will prevent people from just picking up a
> number from the abstract and misusing it.

---(Reply)---
We still would like to show our results in the general
formalism, 2-flavor oscillation from numu to nue, because 3-flavor
oscillation framework is not yet confirmed and this analysis 
searches only for appearance of nue (i.e. this analysis aims to set a
limit on the mixing from numu to nue, and possible exotic process
resulting nue appearance). But, we agreed with your comment on the
possibility to mislead readers to recognize our notation theta_mue as
theta_13 in 3-flavor framework. In order to avoid confusing readers,
we would like to add the statement "sin^2 2th_mue ~= 1/2 sin^2
2th_13"in the abstract.
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> In the captions to Fig. 1 and Table 1., the term sin^2(2th) appears.
> It is necessary to specify which sin^2(2th) is being referred to.

---(Reply)---
We think the captions are confusing. We would like to
use our notations, theta_mumu and theta_mue, as the mixing parameters.
---------------


> The correspondence between their conventions and the standard
> conventions is finally mentioned on page 8, with the simple statement
> that they are explained in Ref. 16.  This is not sufficient.	A short
> paragraph explaining the differences between 2 and 3-flavor analyses
> is needed.

---(Reply)---
We think lack of explanations on our notation make
readers confuse with 3-flavor analyses. We would like to add a short
paragraph at the introduction part on the 2nd page. It shows that our
analysis is based on the 2-flavor approximation, and that our notation
theta_mue can be translated to theta_13 assuming 3-flavor oscillation
with certain parameters.
---------------

> Finally, the authors use the method of Feldman and Cousins to get
> their boound. This is not objectionable since Feldman and Cousins is a
> rigorous application of classical statistics. However, in this case
> the experiment has observed fewer events than expected from
> background. In such cases, the upper limit is below the calculatied
> sensitivity of the experiment, and Feldman and Cousins recommend that
> the sensitivity also be quoted, so that the reader can judge to what
> extent the limit is suppressed by a statistical fluctuation in the
> background.

---(Reply)---
As you pointed out, we observed fewer nue candidates
than those from expected background. We completely agree with you to
show experimental sensitivity together with our result. We add the
sensitivity curve on the contour plot.
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