PONE-D-19-34431

Application of network analysis and cluster analysis for better prevention and control of swine diseases in Argentina

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr Baron,

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Grzegorz Woźniakowski, PhD ScD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

[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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: The paper presents very important data regarding to Argentina pigs industry - number of herds, size of herds and all possible connection between them even sesonal data. The statistical data idicate the future solution in preventing the spread of pig diseases such as African swine fever.

Line 60-63 - the sentence is to long and unclear, you should use two separete sentences.

In line 67-68, Porcine Reproductive Respiratory Syndrome, African Swine Fever and Classical Swine Fever should be written with lowercase letters

Line 77-80 you are using twice the word "re-emerging".

Line 386 - you skip comma in the number.

Line 469 - "an" not "a".

When you one use full name of the disease (African swine fever line 68) in the rest part of manuscript use shortcut (see line 471).

In reference you should use one form of ending in order to numer of pages: „p.1-2”, pp.1-2” „p. 1-2”.

In reagarding to point 3 "Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?" - the data presented in paper are clear and available in the manuscript however the authors made declaration that the data are partly confidence:

"Data cannot be shared publicly due to confidentiality issue as this is government individual census data"

so I am not sure if the manusrcipt could be publish.

Reviewer #2: Major issues:

This is a well-written study providing insights for of swine movements networks in Argentina in order to define the most strategic points for infectious diseases prevention and control. This detailed analysis was based on comprehensive and reliable dataset, obtained from national registry of pig movements. The methods selected by the authors (social network analysis – SNA and graph theory) were previously applied by others to characterize swine movement networks in other countries, but this report was the first work regarding this issue in Argentina, thus it seems to be important and necessary in regards to the control of swine pathogens spreading.

I believe this manuscript has a great potential for publication. The manuscript is well organized and the methods are sound. The study cites current literature, which is properly placed in the context. The methods used in the study are clearly stated, the details of the methodology are sufficient to reproduce the study by other authors. The study generated a lot of data, which is presented in the tables and figures, properly placed in the manuscript. The interpretation of results is fully supported by the data, followed by comprehensive discussion with regards to similar studies performed by other authors. Moreover, also limitations of the analysis are well discussed, highlighting the need for collecting of more data regarding individual pig movement to improve the resolution of the study (lines558-559). The use of sample farms A, B, C in discussion significantly improved understanding of the limitations of the study. Discussion section is well written, nevertheless the context of infectious diseases spreading in the context of obtained data is slightly insufficient and should be expanded to reinforce the meaning of the obtained results. The study is performed on the country level, but in the context of exotic diseases, also the issue of pig import into Argentina should be at least mentioned in the introduction, and need minor discussion on the background of obtained data. Any information of pig of foreign origin on the market might indicate the potential sources of disease introduction into Argentina. Nevertheless, this minor missing issues did not affect overall high quality and informativeness of the study.

Minor issues:

1. If is is possible, the tables 2-7 should be moved into supplementary information.

2. White background in the figures 1 and 2 will improve graphical presentation of the data.

3. Figure 10 is not necessary, depicted node is easy to observe at figure 11.

4. Lines 73-75: reference is missing.

5. Lines 77-80: “[…]transboundary, re-emerging diseases if they enter the country” – remove unnecessary comma and change “should” to “if”.

6. Lines 87-88: comma should stand instead of full stop after reference no 13.

7. Line 469: an important

8. 67-68, 471-472: diseases names should be written lowercase, except “African swine fever”.

9. Line 479-480: I would change “[…]we have what is known as the[…]” into “there is so-called”

10. Lines 483-486: too many words of “small”, try to use synonymous words

11. Line 584: “[…]would be the most useful”

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Application of network analysis and cluster analysis for better prevention and control of swine diseases in Argentina

PONE-D-19-34431R1

Dear Dr. Baron,

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.

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With kind regards,

Grzegorz Woźniakowski, PhD ScD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: All comments have been addressed

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: (No Response)

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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: No