Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 2, 2021
Decision Letter - Jun Yang, Editor

PONE-D-21-04373

Thermal-Comfort Evaluation of and Plan for Public Space of Maling Village, Henan, China

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. DU,

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 submit your revised manuscript by May 22 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. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (1) whether consent was informed and (2) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information.”

3. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information."

4. Thank you for including your ethics statement:  "The field studies were conducted at an village public open space in Changdai Town, Mengjin County, Luoyang City, Henan Province. Thus, we could conduct experiments there without specific permits. The experiments conducted in this study did not involve endangered or protected species.".

   

Please amend your current ethics statement to include the full name of the ethics committee/institutional review board(s) that approved your specific study.

Once you have amended this/these statement(s) in the Methods section of the manuscript, please add the same text to the “Ethics Statement” field of the submission form (via “Edit Submission”).

For additional information about PLOS ONE ethical requirements for human subjects research, please refer to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-human-subjects-research.

5. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified (a) whether consent was informed and (b) what type you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information.

If you are reporting a retrospective study of medical records or archived samples, please ensure that you have discussed whether all data were fully anonymized before you accessed them and/or whether the IRB or ethics committee waived the requirement for informed consent. If patients provided informed written consent to have data from their medical records used in research, please include this information.

6. We note that Figures 1, 2 and 15 in your submission contain map/satellite images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (a) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (b) remove the figures from your submission:

a) You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure(s) [#] to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license. 

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an "Other" file with your submission.

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

b) If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful:

USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html

NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

7. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ

8. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information.

9. We note that your supporting information includes an image of a participant in the study. 

As per the PLOS ONE policy (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-human-subjects-research) on papers that include identifying, or potentially identifying, information, the individual(s) or parent(s)/guardian(s) must be informed of the terms of the PLOS open-access (CC-BY) license and provide specific permission for publication of these details under the terms of this license. Please download the Consent Form for Publication in a PLOS Journal (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=8ce6/plos-consent-form-english.pdf). The signed consent form should not be submitted with the manuscript, but should be securely filed in the individual's case notes. Please amend the methods section and ethics statement of the manuscript to explicitly state that the patient/participant has provided consent for publication: “The individual in this manuscript has given written informed consent (as outlined in PLOS consent form) to publish these case details”.

If you are unable to obtain consent from the subject of the photograph, you will need to remove the figure and any other textual identifying information or case descriptions for this individual.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewer 1

Overall, this paper is interesting and the measurement and analysis is sound. It has the potential to be accepted after authors revisions (I have done some in the attachment)

1. The English should be improved.

2. The introduction should be improved.

3. The methods should be restructured.

The specific comments are given in the attachment.

Reviewer 2

After a very careful reading of the work entitled "Thermal-Comfort Evaluation of and Plan for Public Space of Maling Village, Henan, China", I have found a very well-done work, well presented and organized, clear in concepts and methodology. The topic and context attract attention for many readers from various disciplines. The study is worth to be published in PLOS ONE after conducting the revisions.

1. Local climate zone is a very meaningful research. I think the author can apply this idea to this study, so as to improve the applicability of the results.

Suggest reading, for instance,

https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2808469

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101487

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123767

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2020.100700

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102818

2. The language of this manuscript needs to be revised by native English speaking experts.

3.The format of the paper should be consistent

[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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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: No

**********

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: Overall, this paper is interesting and the measurement and analysis is sound. It has the potential to be accepted after authors revisions (I have done some in the attachment)

1. The English should be improved.

2. The introduction should be improved.

3. The methods should be restructured.

The specific comments are given in the attachment.

Reviewer #2: After a very careful reading of the work entitled "Thermal-Comfort Evaluation of and Plan for Public Space of Maling Village, Henan, China", I have found a very well-done work, well presented and organized, clear in concepts and methodology. The topic and context attract attention for many readers from various disciplines. The study is worth to be published in PLOS ONE after conducting the revisions.

1. Local climate zone is a very meaningful research. I think the author can apply this idea to this study, so as to improve the applicability of the results.

Suggest reading, for instance,

https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2808469

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101487

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123767

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2020.100700

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102818

2. The language of this manuscript needs to be revised by native English speaking experts.

3.The format of the paper should be consistent.

**********

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.

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

[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.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Thermal-Comfort Evaluation of and Plan for Public Space (AutoRecovered).docx
Revision 1

1.Question 1

Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming.

Response:

Thank you for your suggestion. We have carefully revised the format of the manuscript in accordance with the requirements of the journal strictly, including those for file naming.

2.Question 2 and 5: Ethics statement

Response:

The field studies were conducted in Maling village, Changdai Town, Mengjin County, Luoyang City, Henan Province, China. The public open space of the village was taken as the study area. This study was supported by the local government and the masses. The questionnaire survey and field measurement did not involve endangered or protected species. For a detailed explanation, please see the Supporting Information.

3.Question 3: Questionnaire investigation

Response:

Outdoor Thermal comfort questionnaire

Date: / /____ Time: __________

1 Gender

Male Female

Height: _________ Weight: _________

2 What is your age group range?

18-29 years

30-40 years

41-50 years

51-60 years

61-64 years

65years and older

3 What are you wearing now? (multiple choice)

Pale colors Neutral Dark colors

Upper: Sleeveless vest Short-sleeve T-shirt

Long- sleeve T-shirt Long- sleeve blouse Sweater

Bottom: Short shorts Straight trousers (thin) long skirt

Short skirt Other_______

4 Location: Space with fitness facilities Unsheltered square

Spaces with shading from trees Unshaded lawns Green park spaces Pavilions Areas with shading from buildings Roads

5 Please describe your overall comfort level?

(Note: Please vote according to your actual situation at this time)

6 How do you feel at this moment?

7 Your current activity?

Standing (chatting, playing mobile phone, enjoy scenery, etc.)

Seating (chatting, playing mobile phone, reading, etc.)

Strolling

Low-intensity exercising (brisk walking, looking after children, walk the dog, etc.)

Medium-intensity exercising (Jogging, etc.)

High- intensity exercising (ball games, square dancing, etc.)

8 How long have you been here?

<15 min 15-30 min 30-60 min >60 min

9 What time do you like to come here during the day?

6:00-8:00 8:00-10:00 10:00-12:00 12:00-14:00 14:00-16:00 16:00-18:00 18:00-20:00 20:00-21:00

10 Which meteorological parameters do you think have the greatest impact on thermal comfort? (select two of them)

Air temperature Relative humidity Wind speed Solar radiation

11 You will be more comfortable if the environment (single choice for each)

Air temperature: Higher Unchanged Lower

Relative humidity: Damper Unchanged Drier

Wind speed: Stronger Unchanged Weaker

Solar radiation: Stronger Unchanged Weaker

室外热舒适问卷调查

日期: / /____ 时间: __________

1 性别

男 女

身高: _________ 体重: _________

2 您处于哪个年龄阶段?

18-29 岁

30-40 岁

41-50 岁

51-60 岁

61-64 岁

65岁及以上

3 您现在穿什么? (多选)

白色 中性色 黑色

上部: 无袖背心 短袖T恤 长袖T恤

长袖衬衫 毛衣

下部: 超短裤 直裤(薄) 长裙

短裙 其他_______

4位置: 有健身设施的地方 无遮挡的广场 遮阳树下

无遮阳的草坪 公园绿地 凉亭

建筑物的阴影区 道路

5 请描述一下您的整体舒适度?

(注:请根据本次实际情况投票)

6 此时此刻你感觉如何?

7 您目前的活动?

站立 (聊天, 玩手机, 欣赏风景等)

坐着 (闲聊, 玩手机, 阅读等)

散步

低强度运动 快步走, 照看孩子, 遛狗等)

中强度运动 (慢跑等)

高强度运动 (球类运动,广场舞等)

8 您在这里多久了?

<15 分钟 15-30 分钟 30-60分钟 >60分钟

9 在一天中,您喜欢什么时候来这里?

6:00-8:00 8:00-10:00 10:00-12:00 12:00-14:00

14:00-16:00 16:00-18:00 18:00-20:00 20:00-21:00

10 您认为哪些气象参数对热舒适的影响最大? (选择其中的两个)

空气温度 相对湿度 风速 太阳辐射

11 如果环境是……你会感觉更舒适(每类选择一个)

空气温度: 更高 不变 更低

相对湿度: 更潮湿 不变 更干

风速: 更强 不变 更弱

太阳辐射: 更强 不变 更弱

4.Question 4: Please amend your current ethics statement to include the full name of the ethics committee/institutional review board(s) that approved your specific study

Response:

The full name of the institution that approved our research is "people's Government of Changtai Town, Mengjin County".

5.Question 6:

The satellite images in Figures 1, 2 and 17 (a) in this study are all from Beijing Qianfan Shijing Co., Ltd, and the contract is signed as follows:

6.Question 7:

The ORCID iD of all authors are as follows:

FAN QINDONG, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2370-6252

DU FENGTIAN, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4879-2409

LI HU, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3416-8250

ZHANG CHENMING, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7579-3285

7.Question 8:

We have attached the captions of the supporting information files at the end of the manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly.

For a detailed explanation, please see the Supporting Information.

8.Question 9:

We've removed the images about the participants in the Supporting Information. For a detailed explanation, please see the Supporting Information.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Academic Editor.docx
Decision Letter - Jun Yang, Editor

Thermal-Comfort Evaluation of and Plan for Public Space of Maling Village, Henan, China

PONE-D-21-04373R1

Dear Dr. DU,

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,

Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept

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

**********

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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 #1: Yes

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 #1: Yes

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 #1: I believe authors have already well addressed all my concerns and questions. I suggest the acceptance of this paper.

Reviewer #2: The quality of this manuscript has been significantly improved. Some problems in the first edition have been revised according to the comments of the reviewers. The study is worth publishing.

**********

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

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Jun Yang, Editor

PONE-D-21-04373R1

Thermal-Comfort Evaluation of and Plan for Public Space of Maling Village, Henan, China

Dear Dr. Du:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. 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.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .