PONE-D-21-08939

Computer-aided identification of degenerative neuromuscular diseases based on gait dynamics and ensemble decision tree classifiers

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fraiwan,

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Thippa Reddy Gadekallu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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: Abstract is well-written.

No need of making separate subsections 1.1 and 1.2

Where is the related work section? Limitations in existing work should lead to the proposed work section.

Authors can consider the following recent references:

Long-term Wind Power Forecasting using Tree-based Learning Algorithms

A Consolidated Decision Tree-based Intrusion Detection System for binary and multiclass imbalanced datasets

A Trusted Social Network using Hypothetical Mathematical Model and Decision-based Scheme

Discussion and Conclusion should not be clubbed.

It is always necessary to analyze the results rather than discussing only.

Future work should be discussed with more clearity.

Write the text in simple present tense.

English editing required.

Reviewer #2: 1. Please improve overall readability of the paper.

2. I can see some paragraph in introduction, related work and proposed approach which should be merged. Same thing is with background section. Please reduce text and improve the representation of this section.

3. The objectives of this paper need to be polished. Contribution list should be polished at the end of the introduction section and last paragraph of the introduction should be the organization of the paper.

4. Introduction is poorly written. Please add background of gait fluctuations studies in the introduction.

6. Contributions at the end of introduction section should be polished.

7. Relevant literature review of latest similar research studies on the topic at hand must be discussed.

8. Quality of figures are not good.

9. Result section need to be polished.

10. All abbreviations must be described.

11. There are some grammar and typo errors.

12. Authors must add more up to date references related to security of 2020,2021 in introduction and literature.

- Authors should add these recenet references:

1) BCD-WERT: a novel approach for breast cancer detection using whale optimization based efficient features and extremely randomized tree algorithm, peerj computer science

2) Automated cognitive health assessment in smart homes using machine learning, Sustainable Cities and Society.

Reviewer #3: 1. Summarize the related works in the form of a table.

2. Some of the recent and relevant works such as the following can be discussed in the paper: "An ensemble machine learning approach through effective feature extraction to classify fake news, Early detection of diabetic retinopathy using PCA-firefly based deep learning model, An adaptive multi-layer botnet detection technique using machine learning classifiers".

3. Present a detailed analysis on theresults obtained.

4. Discuss about the limitations and future scope of the current wor.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Rutvij H Jhaveri

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Computer-aided identification of degenerative neuromuscular diseases based on gait dynamics and ensemble decision tree classifiers

PONE-D-21-08939R1

Dear Dr. Fraiwan,

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,

Thippa Reddy Gadekallu

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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: 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

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?

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

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: The authors have addressed my suggestions. I would like to accept this paper.The authors have addressed my suggestions. I would like to accept this paper.The authors have addressed my suggestions. I would like to accept this paper.

Reviewer #3: I accept the paper for publication in its present form as the authors addressed all my comments in the paper.

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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: No

Reviewer #3: No