PONE-D-19-20446

Predicting human body composition using a modified adaptive genetic algorithm

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr. Chen,

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.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Feb 02 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.

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Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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• 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,

Le Hoang Son, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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We note that one or more of the authors are employed by a commercial company: Beijing Kangping technology co. LTD,

a. Please provide an amended Funding Statement declaring this commercial affiliation, as well as a statement regarding the Role of Funders in your study. If the funding organization did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and only provided financial support in the form of authors' salaries and/or research materials, please review your statements relating to the author contributions, and ensure you have specifically and accurately indicated the role(s) that these authors had in your study. You can update author roles in the Author Contributions section of the online submission form.

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Comments to the Author

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1:

-Line 287 the authors mentioned w1-w11 but the formula only show up to w9, where are w10 and w11?

-Please explain how alpha and beta values are determined

-The english need to be improved.

-Include a statistical test to show significancy between the different algorithms that were compared.

-How were defined the number of samples selected as training and test sets? are these amounts enough? Why didn't the authors use cross validation? Where was the model implemented and tested (computer characteristics, software, etc.)?

================================

Reviewer #2:

1. Background missing. Clarity of presentation is needs to improved via clearly specifying objectives, focus and motivation of the proposed work

2. Recent Research: More recent references need to be added and discussed in the literature section and background information about existing approaches in the context of proposed work addressed in this paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1568494618306422

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00500-018-3177-y

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1568494615001209

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11227-018-2279-8

3.Open issues, limitations of the existing approaches or prevalent trend /issues of Predicting human body composition using a modified adaptive genetic algorithm can be elucidated.

4. Add the contents in the abstract of the paper and highlight the impact of the proposed work.

5. The method/approach in the context of proposed work should be write in detail.

6. Real time case studies might be add more importance of this chapter. The authors should add the case study and its results.

7.Result and discussion should be rewritten to summarize the findings/significance of the work. Please discuss the research limitations and future works in the conclusion.

8. To explore Comparative results with of existing approaches/methods with relate to the proposed work.

[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.

PONE-D-19-20446R1

Predicting human body composition using a modified adaptive genetic algorithm

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr. Chen,

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.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Apr 19 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,

Le Hoang Son, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3:

1.Why the author has chosen the modified adaptive genetic algorithm Predicting 1 human body composition ?.As there are several algorithms available that can predict better results.

2.Needs more explanation of Table.1 as well as Table.2 parameters in the result and discussion section.

3.In Table.4 the authors present theComparison of the training time for different models but how actually derived the Maximum fitness degree and Training time(s) values are unclear.

Elaborate with suitable examples. Data seems to fabricate.

4.Very hard to find the novelty of this manuscript? The authors suggested highlighting their own contributions.

5.If possible explain briefly the dataset and parameters which have been used in this article.

[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.

PONE-D-19-20446R2

Predicting human body composition using a modified adaptive genetic algorithm

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr. Chen,

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.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Jun 13 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,

Le Hoang Son, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Editor: We appreciate that the revised paper has been significantly improved, but still some problems remained:

1> The authors should ask a native English speaker or consult a professional English editting service to proofread the paper. Please upload the certificate of language correction in the submission. Some examples, to name a few:

-- Abstract: "Background: Changes to human body composition reflect, to some extent, changes in health status"  (Incomplete sentence).

-- Introduction: "However, once the regression equation is determined, 68 it becomes difficult to adjust it according to the situation, meaning adaptability is poor." (Incomplete sentence).

-- Improved RReliefF algorithm: "Where ik x is the k-th body physiological parameter value of sample "   (where instead of Where).

..

2) Equations need re-typed. The current version lacks of clear formulae and equations. All equations must be numberred.

3) Please append statistical analysis for the experimental results in Tables 4-5 to prove the achieved results being statistically significance. 

4) Future works must be appended by adding 3-5 more solid works from this sentence: "In future research work, we will consider how to more effectively reduce the time complexity of the algorithm and cross-validation will be used to test model performance in future research."

5) The coherence to PLOS ONE should be explained clearly in the Introduction and through recent related articles.

6) The authors should consider to change the paper title to reflect more contribution and coherence to PLOS. 

"Predicting human body composition using a modified adaptive genetic algorithm"

What is modified here?

=================================================

Reviewer #1: All the reviewers' observations were addressed. This last version of the manuscript shows a remarkable improvement compared to its initial version.

=================================================

Reviewer #2: All the comments are properly addressed

No further review is required.

The manuscript ready to be accepted

=================================================

Reviewer #3:

1. Author should highlight the contribution

2. More emphasize on the dataset.Sources of dataset should required to mention

3. More explanations on the Figures and Tables.

[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.

Predicting human body composition using a modified adaptive genetic algorithm with a novel selection operator

PONE-D-19-20446R3

Dear Dr. Chen,

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

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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 help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- 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.

Kind regards,

Le Hoang Son, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: Article is interesting and address the current research problem. All the comments are addressed. The organization of the paper is very good with different sections and paragraphs are clear, which makes the paper easy to follow. I encourage the authors to think more on the overall structure of the manuscript.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)