Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 7, 2020
Decision Letter - Jose M. Moran, Editor

PONE-D-20-07678

Prediction and discrimination of skeletal muscle function by bioelectrical impedance vector analysis using a standing impedance analyzer in healthy Taiwanese adults

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hsieh,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Minor and major weaknesses have been identified that need to be addressed. It would be particularly interesting for the authors to address those highlighted by the reviewer 2. The focus should be on improving the discussion of the study according to the requirements expressed.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Jun 15 2020 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter.

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jose M. Moran

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Minor and major weaknesses have been identified that need to be addressed. It would be particularly interesting for the authors to address those highlighted by the reviewer 2. The focus should be on improving the discussion of the study according to the requirements expressed.

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section:

'Competing Interests: Two of the authors (KCH) and (MCH) are employed by Charder Electronic Co, Ltd. This company did not provide KCH and MCH financial support in executing this study. Nor did the company have any additional role in the research funding, study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There are no patents, products in development nor marketed products to be declared. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.'

a. Please confirm that this does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to  PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests).  If there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared.

b. Please include your updated Competing Interests statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

Please know it is PLOS ONE policy for corresponding authors to declare, on behalf of all authors, all potential competing interests for the purposes of transparency. PLOS defines a competing interest as anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to one of the journals. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relationship to an organization or another person. Please follow this link to our website for more details on competing interests: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: 59 - Insert period.

69 - Insert 'the' before general population.

70-79 - Specific reported data from other studies is not necessary to include in the Introduction. This can be distracting to the reader. I suggest only including your study data reported in the Results section.

89 - Insert 'an' before alternating.

227-228 - Include parenthesis when describing 20% for group I and V, or not at all. Regardless, stay consistent.

283-284 - Which goodness of fit test was used.

Reviewer #2: With this study authors aimed to determine if bioelectrical impedance vector analysis assessment can predict muscle function in a specific healthy adult population. The methods used are appropriate but some details should be added to increase the completeness of the manuscript as well as additional discussion points that will aid in reader comprehension and interpretation.

Introduction should include a better justification of the study rational and clarify the actual knowledge about bioelectrical impedance vector analysis to discriminate muscle function as well as BIVA assessment positions.

Discussion should include appraisal with other methodologies and results used in previous studies. It also should be discussed how the circumstances BIVA was tested (refrain from alcoholic beverages for at least 48 hours, avoid diuretics for 7 days fast for 4 hours prior to study, and not asses females during menstruation) can interfere with the results.

Specific Comments:

Line

55 “Skeletal muscle is the largest organ in human body”: please review the statement and add the bibliographic reference

59 “and chronic disease may affect muscle mass and function [2] Muscle mass can be indirectly”: add punctuation mark period

62 “local muscle endurance [3].” Please verify the reference used

69 “In general population, a lower HSG is”: Correct HGS

81, 82 “HGS is one of the recommended tools for assessing nutritional state [13].”: Consider altering to: HGS is one of the four recommended types of measurements to assess nutritional state. [13].

226 “strsu3ength than R/H in all 3 modes.”: Change to: strength

258, 259 “Alternatively, segmental BIVA components may be measured with electrodes placed on the ipsilateral arm and foot, and voltage electrodes on both hands..”: Please add reference

Table 1: verify legend

Figure 1: add figure title and verify legend

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 1

Comments from reviewers:

Reviewer #1

59 - Insert period.

[Answer]:

Thanks for pointing out the error. We have corrected the mistake as below:

(line 59) and chronic disease may affect muscle mass and function [2].

69 - Insert 'the' before general population.

[Answer]:

Thanks for pointing out the error. We have added the article “the” before the noun as below:

(line 69) In “the” general population, a lower HSG is……..

70-79 - Specific reported data from other studies is not necessary to include in the Introduction. This can be distracting to the reader. I suggest only including your study data reported in the Results section.

[Answer]:

Thanks for the suggestion. We have deleted line 70-79 in the revised manuscript. In addition, the rest of 2nd paragraph was merged with the 1st paragraph.

89 - Insert 'an' before alternating.

[Answer]:

Thanks for pointing out the error. We have corrected it in the revised manuscript as below:

(line 89) properties such as resistance (R) and reactance (Xc) using “an” alternating current.

227-228 - Include parenthesis when describing 20% for group I and V, or not at all. Regardless, stay consistent.

[Answer]:

The sentence has been rephased as below:

(line 227-229) The subjects were divided into 5 equal groups (group I to V) depending on their HGS level, with group V representing the lowest quintile.

283-284 - Which goodness of fit test was used.

[Answer]:

To make the sentence clear, we have change “goodness of fit” to R-squared values in the revised manuscript as below:

Compared to the regression model for HGS developed using inpatient subjects by Norman et al. [25], the independent variables included in our regression analysis for muscle function were the same, but our models exhibited better R-squared values (r2 = 0.745-792) than theirs (r2 = 0.708).

Reviewer #2

With this study authors aimed to determine if bioelectrical impedance vector analysis assessment can predict muscle function in a specific healthy adult population. The methods used are appropriate but some details should be added to increase the completeness of the manuscript as well as additional discussion points that will aid in reader comprehension and interpretation.

Introduction should include a better justification of the study rationale and clarify the actual knowledge about bioelectrical impedance vector analysis to discriminate muscle function as well as BIVA assessment positions.

Discussion should include appraisal with other methodologies and results used in previous studies. It also should be discussed how the circumstances BIVA was tested (refrain from alcoholic beverages for at least 48 hours, avoid diuretics for 7 days fast for 4 hours prior to study, and not asses females during menstruation) can interfere with the results.

[Answer]:

We thank the reviewer for the suggestions. We have revised the introduction and discussion sections in accordance with the comments from the reviewer. The main changes in the introduction can be found in the last two paragraphs of then section.

The main reason for the subject preparation before BIVA such as refrain from alcoholic beverages for at least 48 hours, avoid diuretics for 7 days fast for 4 hours prior to study, and not asses females during menstruation is to have a good control of hydration status of the subject as variation in hydration status may affect the accuracy and precision of electric properties of biological tissues. We have done a literature review and summarized the methodologies in the end of the 2nd paragraph in discussion as below:

However, BIVA approach still involves the use of raw bioelectrical impedance parameters and is sensitive to physiological changes associated with the tissue conductivity. Factors known to introduce variability in tissue electric properties include body position, hydration status, electrolyte concentration, exercise, skin temperature and phase of menstrual cycle [28, 44-46]. This study was performed to test the potential application of BIVA in assessing skeletal muscle function and had the advantage of testing on healthy subjects under a careful control of hydration status.

Also, we have included appraisal with the other BIVA methodologies and results in the 3rd and 4th paragraphs of discussion in the revised manuscript as below:

The most common application of bioelectric impedance measure is whole body mode, which measures the total body electrical parameters with electrodes placed on the ipsilateral arm and foot. Whole body BIVA result is well-known to correlate with many diseases, such as renal diseases, critically ill patients, obesity, sarcopenia, and cachexia [40, 41, 48-50]. However, whole body mode regards the body as a uniform cylinder and this assumption is not entirely correct as the human body has a complex shape [28]. Furthermore, this method cannot provide information about body segment individually, limiting its application.

Segmental body measure of bioelectric impedance is a less common application, which can be acquired by two methods. For the bioelectric impedance of the arm, segmental impedance components can be acquired using two pairs of electrodes attached to the ipsilateral hand and shoulder [50]. The distance between receiving electrodes is then used for adjusting the impedance parameters. This method has been used to assess the skeletal muscle of right arm in Alzheimer’s disease and healthy control, showing a lower phase angles and longer specific vectors in patients with Alzheimer’s disease [51]. However, this approach involves complicated process for electrode placement and is less practical in large scale study. Another segmental approach is proposed by Kushner R.F. [28] who made the assumptions that the human body is composed of five cylinders (two upper limb cylinders, one trunk cylinder and two lower lib cylinders) and tissue electric properties in each cylinder can be directly measured. For BIVA of the arm, impedance components are measured with electrodes placed on the ipsilateral arm and foot, and voltage electrodes on both hands [28, 52], as done in our study. With this method, the measured values of Xc and R are divided by standing height, which assumes a fixed proportion of limb length to body height. This approach is simple and convenient but less discussed.

Specific Comments:

Line

55 “Skeletal muscle is the largest organ in human body”: please review the statement and add the bibliographic reference

[Answer]:

We have added reference to the sentence as below:

(line 55) Skeletal muscle is the largest organ in human body which accounts for 30% of body weight in women and greater than 40% of body weight in men [1,2].

References:

1. Janssen I, Heymsfield SB, Wang ZM, Ross R. Skeletal muscle mass and distribution in 468 men and women aged 18-88 yr. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2000;89(1):81-8.

2. Frontera W, Ochala J. Skeletal Muscle: A Brief Review of Structure and Function. Calcified tissue international. 2014;96.

59 “and chronic disease may affect muscle mass and function [2] Muscle mass can be indirectly”: add punctuation mark period

[Answer]:

Thanks for pointing out the error. We have corrected the mistake as below:

(line 59) and chronic disease may affect muscle mass and function [2].

62 “local muscle endurance [3].” Please verify the reference used

[Answer]:

Thanks for pointing out the error. We have used Endnote to cite and format the references and make sure their correctness and formatting. The correct references here were as below:

62 “local muscle endurance [5,6].”

5. Jones DA, Rutherford OM, Parker DF. Physiological changes in skeletal muscle as a result of strength training. Q J Exp Physiol. 1989;74(3):233-56.

6. Reid KF, Fielding RA. Skeletal muscle power: a critical determinant of physical functioning in older adults. Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2012;40(1):4-12.

69 “In general population, a lower HSG is”: Correct HGS

[Answer]:

We have added “the” prior to general population as suggested by Reviewer 1. We have also done the corrections as below:

(line 69) In the general population, a lower HGS .………..

(line 84) , HGS has also been used to monitor.………..

(line 86) , HGS is a more sensitive indicator to.………..

81, 82 “HGS is one of the recommended tools for assessing nutritional state [13].”: Consider altering to: HGS is one of the four recommended types of measurements to assess nutritional state. [13].

[Answer]:

We have revised the manuscript as suggested by the reviewer as below:

(line 81-82) HGS is one of the four recommended types of measurements to assess nutritional state.

226 “strsu3ength than R/H in all 3 modes.”: Change to: strength

[Answer]:

We have corrected the error spelling of strength in line 226.

258, 259 “Alternatively, segmental BIVA components may be measured with electrodes placed on the ipsilateral arm and foot, and voltage electrodes on both hands.”: Please add reference

[Answer]:

We have added references to the sentence below.

(line 258-259) Alternatively, segmental BIVA components may be measured with electrodes placed on the ipsilateral arm and foot, and voltage electrodes on both hands [24, 46], as done in our study.

24. Kushner RF. Bioelectrical impedance analysis: a review of principles and applications. J Am Coll Nutr. 1992;11(2):199-209.

46. Organ LW, Bradham GB, Gore DT, Lozier SL. Segmental bioelectrical impedance analysis: theory and application of a new technique. J Appl Physiol (1985). 1994;77(1):98-112.

Table 1: verify legend

[Answer]:

Thanks for pointing out the error. We have corrected the error in the footnote as below:

HGS, hand grip strength; Z, impedance; R, resistance; Xc, reactance; R/H, resistance standardized for height; Xc/H, reactance standardized for height; PhA, phase angle; Lean, lean body mass; BF%, percentage body fat. Subscript DH, RH, LH, WB, RA, and LA denote dominant head, right hand, left hand, whole body, right arm and left arm, respectively.

Figure 1: add figure title and verify legend

[Answer]:

1. Asselin MC, Kriemler S, Chettle DR, Webber CE, Bar-Or O, McNeill FE. Hydration status assessed by multi-frequency bioimpedance analysis. Appl Radiat Isot. 1998;49(5-6):495-7.

2. Gudivaka R, Schoeller D, Kushner RF. Effect of skin temperature on multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analysis. J Appl Physiol (1985). 1996;81(2):838-45.

3. Kushner RF. Bioelectrical impedance analysis: a review of principles and applications. J Am Coll Nutr. 1992;11(2):199-209.

4. Gleichauf CN, Roe DA. The menstrual cycle’s effect on the reliability of bioimpedance measurements for assessing body composition. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 1989;50(5):903-7.

For better demostration of Figure 1, we have revised the figure and legend as below:

Figure 1. Illustration of impedance measurement methods for the respective body parts.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: rebutting letter_2020.5.6 (3).docx
Decision Letter - Jose M. Moran, Editor

PONE-D-20-07678R1

Prediction and discrimination of skeletal muscle function by bioelectrical impedance vector analysis using a standing impedance analyzer in healthy Taiwanese adults

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hsieh,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Prior to the final recommendation for publication of the manuscript, it is necessary for the authors to address the observation made by reviewer #2 in regard to possible incorrectly incorporated bibliographical information.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 12 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jose M. Moran

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Most of my concerns have been adequately addressed.

I ask you to review Line 55 “Skeletal muscle is the largest organ in human body which accounts for 30% of body weight in women and greater than 40% of body weight in men [1,2].” None of the cited references defines skeletal muscle an organ as it is a tissue so please change it accordingly.

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Maria António Castro

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 2

Comments from reviewers:

Reviewer #2

Most of my concerns have been adequately addressed.

I ask you to review Line 55 “Skeletal muscle is the largest organ in human body which accounts for 30% of body weight in women and greater than 40% of body weight in men [1,2].” None of the cited references defines skeletal muscle an organ as it is a tissue so please change it accordingly.

[Answer]:

We thank the reviewer for her careful and professional review. We agreed with the reviewer that skeletal muscle is regarded as a tissue type instead of an organ in both original information as well as textbooks. Therefore, in our revised manuscript, the word “organ” has been replaced by “tissue”. Please see below for the change in the revised manuscript (lines 56-57):

Skeletal muscle is the largest tissue in human body which accounts for 30% of body weight in women and greater than 40% of body weight in men [1,2].

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: rebutting letter_2020.5.31.docx
Decision Letter - Jose M. Moran, Editor

Prediction and discrimination of skeletal muscle function by bioelectrical impedance vector analysis using a standing impedance analyzer in healthy Taiwanese adults

PONE-D-20-07678R2

Dear Dr. Hsieh,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

With kind regards,

Jose M. Moran

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Jose M. Moran, Editor

PONE-D-20-07678R2

Prediction and discrimination of skeletal muscle function by bioelectrical impedance vector analysis using a standing impedance analyzer in healthy Taiwanese adults

Dear Dr. Hsieh:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Jose M. Moran

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .