PONE-D-20-13027

Exposure Assessment of Elemental Carbon, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Crystalline Silica at the Underground Excavation Sites for Top-Down Construction Buildings

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yoon,

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.

In your revised manuscript, kindly pay attention to the following aspects:

1. You have divided your abstract into four subheadings, i.e. objective, method, result and conclusions. This might confuse the readers. There is no need to give four subheadings in the abstract. It is advised to combine all four sections under one heading “abstract” without any subheading.
2. In the introduction section, kindly describe some previous similar literature and highlight the novelty of your work in relation to the previous studies.
3. Highlight the significance of your outcomes in stronger way in discussion and conclusion parts.
4. Kindly avoid the use of First Person Singular and Plural (I, we) throughout your text.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 03 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,

Anwar Khitab

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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

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Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

• The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript
• A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a *supporting information* file)
• A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new *manuscript* file)

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4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 8 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table

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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: Partly

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 deals with a subject that falls within the scope of the journal, but the manuscript needs big improvements concerning the overall presentation. Overall, the article should be written more clearly..

1. There is no abstract in the work. This is unacceptable.

2. The introduction section is poorly organized, it is good to express the need for the study with the backlog of literature exists in the framework. There is no background in this introduction stating the urge and novelty of the study in which innovative ideas must be flown through the background along with the useful insights The introduction must be improved. In introduction, please review the previous studies. What is the novelty for this article compared with existing studies?

3. The problem of dusting occurs in many industries. You also have to write about it, e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091846

4. The structure of the paper should include the following sections: introduction, theoretical framework, materials method, results, discussion and conclusions.

5. Need strong comment on scientific outcomes.

Reviewer #2: The comments of this reviewer are as follows:

I think the title accurately reflects the purpose of the paper.

The abstract is concise and informative in concerning to matter under investigation, research method adopted and main results and conclusions.

The paper achieves its declared purpose and was well structured and thought out logically.

The English and syntax are correct.

In general, it is possible to state that the manuscript is technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions, and also authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available.

The methodology and main research options are summarily referred in abstract and little explored in introduction section. A greater emphasis must be given this matter.

The general research method seems to have been rigorous, clear and properly accounted for. However, some options adopted in concerning to research method and resources used are not adequately explained and defended. For example, options related to statistical analysis should be discussed; and Sampling is not sufficiently clear and defended.

The criteria considered for the selection of the projects (construction sites) are not explained neither discussed. The author(s) should improve and clarify significantly this point.

The references are up to date and represent adequately the previous work and the paper addresses the key issues encompassed by the topic.

Tables and figures are elucidative and help to understand. However all figures should include the axes titles as well as the units in axes. .

Don’t use the first verbal person. Please remove "We", or "Our" throughout the ALL text.

In conclusions or discussion sections, I think it would be better to include a small discussion / analysis on whether the results and findings of this paper corresponded to the objectives of the study and will contribute to the increase in knowledge in the studied domain and to the better performance of industry. What were the main contributions from this study? And what is the use of the findings for future studies?

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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.

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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.]

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.

PONE-D-20-13027R1

Exposure Assessment of Elemental Carbon, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Crystalline Silica at the Underground Excavation Sites for Top-Down Construction Buildings

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yoon,

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.

Although the main concerns of the reviewers have been addressed. These include:

1. Description of Novelty

2. Significance of the work in conclusions and discussion.

However, it is advised to improve the following important linguistic issues:

Abstract:

Remove “the” before “1.5 times” at line 45 and remove the sentence “The concentration of EC, OC, TC, PAHs , dust and CS was assessed for underground excavation worker” (under sub-headings, this sentence works but not in a combined abstract) at lines 48-49. This has already been mentioned.

Introduction:

You have now mentioned the novelty of the work, but the novelty as expressed at line 69 needs to be expressed in a better linguistic manner, like, “Although, the concentration levels and workers’ exposure to contaminants/pollutants in tunnel and highway construction have been reported by many researchers [Ref….], its evaluation for excavation works in top-down constructions is still missing”.

Line 113-115: Only mention that the “Sites with diverse ground conditions were selected, including hard, medium and soft rocks/soils.”

What do you mean by “S2, S3 and … Tables”?

Conclusions

Line 454-456: Complete the sentence. It is linguistically incomplete with no punctuation at the end of the sentence. “Therefore, engineering and managerial improvement necessary to improve the working environment in underground excavation workshop”.

Line 461-464: Kindly change the sentence “Through this study, to improve the working environment and prevent occupational diseases in underground excavation workers, the results of the evaluation of the hazards were derived, and this data might be used for preparing engineering and managerial improvement measures. “ To

“This study was aimed to improve the working environment and prevent occupational diseases in underground excavation workers: The hazards are evaluated and the data might be useful for preparing safe engineering and managerial measures.”

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 09 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,

Anwar Khitab

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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

[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.

Exposure Assessment of Elemental Carbon, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Crystalline Silica at the Underground Excavation Sites for Top-Down Construction Buildings

PONE-D-20-13027R2

Dear Dr. Yoon,

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.

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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,

Anwar Khitab

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: