PONE-D-20-22303

Nonoverlap proportion and point-biserial variation

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Luck,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Alan D Hutson

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

There is a substantial revision necessary.

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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: No

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: No

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 especially the introductions and abstract are hard to read and follow which may due to the different established stats concepts mixed together, and these in general are applied to the different scenarios. The method section is too long, it’s unclear what the original work are, and what established techniques are discussed in the paper. This paper may be more suitable to submit the statistical types of journals based on the method section. The following are some detailed comments:

1. Title: is not informative, with only include two statistical terms.

2. Abstract: There are many notations in the abstract which have been messed up due to the formatting, and made the paper very hard to read and follow, e.g., what do R2, P1, etc. represent; why author choose to use rpb, ppb, rpbd types of abbreviation for the key terms of the paper. Readers will lose interests if contents re too technical in the abstract.

It should start with problem description or issues and challenges need be addressed, and then provide statistical solution with applications. The author may simplify the intro section and state clearly what the new work is proposed in this paper, and what are the associated applications.

3. Keywords, to many should limited to 5-6.

4. Introduction: page 2, author started with the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (r) and δ (mean differences, the numerator of Cohen’s d), note that Pearson r and Cohen’s d are two well established stats concepts, each with specific formula to compute the effect size measures. They are applied for two different scenarios: the former is used to correlated two continuous variables (such as age and BMI); while the latter is used for one continuous and one binary (such as binary treatment (y/n) on blood pressure). It’s unclear what are the motivation to mix two scenarios and build the connection between these different effect size measures. It’s inappropriate to simply apply Pearson r in the case of one binary and one continuous variable situation which is why there are list of difficulties author mentioned from line 19-24. If the author intends to correlate the paired data such as before and after, he may need make it clear.

5. Line 16-17, p value answers hypothesis testing question of statistical significance, while effect size measure is related to estimation question, they are different stats techniques, and serves for different purpose, so they are not alternative. It’s true that p value has the drawback of sample size dependence, and the effect size shows the clinical/practical relevance/importance regardless of sample size.

6. Line 24-25:” dichotomy of a normal distribution”, do you mean bivariate normal?

7. Line 24 What does this means “In Paper1, “, is this published?

8. Line 24, “2 × 2 34 contingency tables” refer to two binary variables situations? Why is here/

9. It’s known taking the square the Pearson r value, one can obtain R^2, which shows the variations shared by 2 continuous variables, if R^2 subtracted by 1, one can get the no-overlap portion not shared by two variables, why your proposed novel “point-biserial variation” is needed?

10. Line 48, “paper1” mentioned second time, it appears without reading author’s “paper 1”, it’s difficult to connect and understand the techniques discussed here.

11. Method: it’s unclear what are the new/original work, and what are old/established techniques discussed here. Too long and hard to read.

12. It was poorly formatted, mixed with single spaced with double spaced. Figure’ title is separated from figure.

Reviewer #2: 1. There is no expansion for CART but the abbreviation is frequently used.

2. Proper citation to be used for paper 1

3. Keywords are missing

4.Prposed work explanation is not clear, So should explain clearly.

5. Need to check Spacing and Alignment of the paper

6.Add recent references.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr Kalpana Murugan, Professor & Head, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Krishnankoil, Virudhunagar(Dt) 626 126

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PLOS one revew.docx

PONE-D-20-22303R1

Nonoverlap proportion and the representation of point-biserial variation

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Luck,

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.

Please attend to some of the minor corrections. 

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 15 2021 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,

Alan D Hutson

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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 #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 #2: Yes

**********

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

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 #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 #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 #2: 1. In the revised manuscript the author mentioned the citation Paper1 [2]. Need clarification for this citation.

2. Remaining all the reviewer comments are incorporated .

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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 #2: Yes: Dr Kalpana Murugan

[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.

Nonoverlap proportion and the representation of point-biserial variation

PONE-D-20-22303R2

Dear Dr. Luck,

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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Kind regards,

Alan D Hutson

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: