Modelling the mass adoption potential of wearable medical devices

Qing Yang; Abdullah Al Mamun; Naeem Hayat; Mohd Fairuz Md. Salleh; Gao Jingzu; Noor Raihani Zainol

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0269256

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 10, 2022
25 Apr 2022 Decision Letter - Luigi Lavorgna, Editor PONE-D-22-07166Modelling the Mass Adoption Potential of Wearable Medical DevicesPLOS ONE 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 Jun 09 2022 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: https://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, Luigi Lavorgna 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. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services. If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free. 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) 3. Please include in the Methods section of your manuscript text the information you have provided in the Ethics Statement section of the submission form regarding 1) the assessment by your institutional ethics committee, and 2) the consent obtained from participants. Please also include as a supporting information file the questionnaire used in the online survey. 4. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. 5. Please amend your authorship list in your manuscript file to include authors Abdullah Al Mamun, Yang Qing, Naeem Hayat, Mohd Fairuz Md. Salkeh, Gao Jingzu and Noor Raihani Zaino. 6. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. 7. 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. [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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: 1) “The public requires promising health facilities as public health services are may not be available for all when they needed.” The sentence is not phrased correctly, rewrite it as follows: The public requires promising health facilities as public health services may not be available to everyone when they might need them. 2) “However, the question remains how the WMD technological attributes, personal health behaviour, and social mass adoption instigate the intention to use and adopt WMDs.” Rephrase as: However, the question remains how the WMD technological attributes, personal health behaviour, and social mass adoption instigate the intention to use and adopt WMDs. 3) “Besides, this study examines the development of the intention to use with personal health behaviour [including health consciousness (HCS) and health anxiety (HAY)], perceived product value (PPV), and mass adoption of WMDs.” Please try to be clearer in explaining the purpose of the study. 4) “The mass adoption among the community and peers builds the perception of acceptance and consideration that the technology is good and benefits the users.” Please try to use less generic and more scientific terms. 5) “The degree to which a person believes that using WMDs would cost money is characterised as PCO.” Perhaps it would be more appropriate to use "defined as" instead of "characterised". 6) “Besides, the health advantages that a user expects from a digital health device are referred to as PUS.” It seems a bit redundant like many other sentences in the text. There is no point in rewriting the previous sentence by changing the word order. 7) “Buyers and producers have progressively acknowledged the significance of perceived value in behaviour intention since it is considered one of the most important factors in behaviour intention.” Would it be better to phrase it this way? “Perceived value is considered one of the most important factors in behavioural intention, to the extent that buyers and producers have gradually recognised its great importance.” 8) “H2c: HAY has a positive effect on the intention to use WMDs. 2.2.8 Perceived critical mass (PCM)”. Please insert a space between these two lines, as for the previous paragraphs. 9) “The level of a user’s apparent desire to use new technology is referred to as behavioural intention.” It would be better to include the definition of "behavior intention" in paragraph 2.2.5 when you first mention it. 10) Jiangsu 1100 8.6 The value in the table is incorrect. 11) “This study’s findings offer valuable insights into how elderly consumers adopt WMDs.” Only 6.5% of the respondents were over 60 years old. 12) In the introduction section, the authors should mention more extensively the numerous experiences available concerning the use of WD in the management of health (suggested ref: PMID: 34018047; PMID: 30405913; PMID: 33802029). ****** 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 [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269256.r001
Revision 1
4 May 2022 Author Response Reply to Reviewer(s) Comments Modelling the Mass Adoption Potential of Wearable Medical Devices PONE-D-22-07166 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 Author(s) Reply: I will do it. 2. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services. If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free. 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) Author(s) Reply: We uploaded proof of editing and certificate from the editor as supporting information 3. Please include in the Methods section of your manuscript text the information you have provided in the Ethics Statement section of the submission form regarding 1) the assessment by your institutional ethics committee, and 2) the consent obtained from participants. Please also include as a supporting information file the questionnaire used in the online survey. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Complete questionnaire presented as Appendix 1 (before references) Amendment in the Manuscript: 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The local ethics committee (Universiti Malaysia Kelantan) ruled that no formal ethics approval was required in this particular case because this research did not collect any medical information, there was no known risk involved, no intention to publish personal information, and did not collect data from underaged respondents. This study has been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent for participation was obtained from respondents who participated in the survey. For the respondents who participated in the survey online (using Google form), they were asked to read the ethical statement posted at the top of the form (There is no compensation for responding, nor is there any known risk. In order to ensure that all information will remain confidential, please do not include your name. Participation is strictly voluntary and you may refuse to participate at any time. and proceed only if they agree. No data was collected from anyone under 18 years old. 4. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. Author(s) Reply: We will submit the questionnaire and data as supporting material. Please update the Data Availability Statement accordingly. 5. Please amend your authorship list in your manuscript file to include authors Abdullah Al Mamun, Yang Qing, Naeem Hayat, Mohd Fairuz Md. Salkeh, Gao Jingzu and Noor Raihani Zaino. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Amendment in the Manuscript: Qing Yang1, Abdullah Al Mamun1, Naeem Hayat2, Mohd Fairuz Md. Salleh1, Gao Jingzu3 and Noor Raihani Zainol4 1UKM - Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600, UKM Bangi, Malaysia; 2Global Entrepreneurship Research and Innovation Centre, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, 16100 Kota Bharu, Malaysia; 3UCSI Graduate Business School, UCSI University, Cheras, 56000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 4Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Business, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, 16100 Kota Bharu, Malaysia almamun@ukm.edu.my, mamun7793@gmail.com 6. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Amendment in the Manuscript: 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The local ethics committee (Universiti Malaysia Kelantan) ruled that no formal ethics approval was required in this particular case because this research did not collect any medical information, there was no known risk involved, no intention to publish personal information, and did not collect data from underaged respondents. This study has been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent for participation was obtained from respondents who participated in the survey. For the respondents who participated in the survey online (using Google form), they were asked to read the ethical statement posted at the top of the form (There is no compensation for responding, nor is there any known risk. In order to ensure that all information will remain confidential, please do not include your name. Participation is strictly voluntary and you may refuse to participate at any time. and proceed only if they agree. No data was collected from anyone under 18 years old. 7. 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. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Amendment in the Manuscript: The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article is presented as supporting material: S1 Data – WMD. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] REVIEWERS' COMMENTS: 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 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 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 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) Comment 1: “The public requires promising health facilities as public health services are may not be available for all when they needed.” The sentence is not phrased correctly, rewrite it as follows: The public requires promising health facilities as public health services may not be available to everyone when they might need them. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Comment 2: “However, the question remains how the WMD technological attributes, personal health behaviour, and social mass adoption instigate the intention to use and adopt WMDs.” Rephrase as: However, the question remains how the WMD technological attributes, personal health behaviour, and social mass adoption instigate the intention to use and adopt WMDs. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Comment 3: “Besides, this study examines the development of the intention to use with personal health behaviour [including health consciousness (HCS) and health anxiety (HAY)], perceived product value (PPV), and mass adoption of WMDs.” Please try to be clearer in explaining the purpose of the study. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: However, the question remains how the WMD technological attributes, personal health behaviour, and social mass adoption instigate the intention to use and adopt WMDs. Therefore, the current study explores the construction of WMD value with the technology features (compatibility, cost, usefulness, and accuracy) forming the product value. Besides, this study examines the effects of health consciousness, health anxiety, perceived product value, and perceived critical mass on the intention and adoption of WMDs. Comment 4: “The mass adoption among the community and peers builds the perception of acceptance and consideration that the technology is good and benefits the users.” Please try to use less generic and more scientific terms. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: The perception of acceptance and consideration that the technology is useful and benefits the users grows as a result of widespread adoption among the community and peers. Comment 5: “The degree to which a person believes that using WMDs would cost money is characterised as PCO.” Perhaps it would be more appropriate to use "defined as" instead of "characterised". Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: The degree to which a person believes that using WMDs would cost money is defined as PCO (Liu, Wang, Huang, Huang, Yang, & Li, 2019). The higher the perceived cost of WMDs, the less likely they will be used. Comment 6: “Besides, the health advantages that a user expects from a digital health device are referred to as PUS.” It seems a bit redundant like many other sentences in the text. There is no point in rewriting the previous sentence by changing the word order. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. We removed this part. Comment 7: “Buyers and producers have progressively acknowledged the significance of perceived value in behaviour intention since it is considered one of the most important factors in behaviour intention.” Would it be better to phrase it this way? “Perceived value is considered one of the most important factors in behavioural intention, to the extent that buyers and producers have gradually recognised its great importance.” Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Comment 8: “H2c: HAY has a positive effect on the intention to use WMDs. 2.2.8 Perceived critical mass (PCM)”. Please insert a space between these two lines, as for the previous paragraphs. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Comment 9: “The level of a user’s apparent desire to use new technology is referred to as behavioural intention.” It would be better to include the definition of "behavior intention" in paragraph 2.2.5 when you first mention it. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: In contrast, "behavioural intention" refers to a user's apparent desire to adopt new technology (Chang, 2020; Venkatesh, Thing, & Xu, 2012). Perceived product value is considered one of the most important factors in behavioural intention, to the extent that buyers and producers have gradually recognised its great importance (Naami et al., 2017). According to numerous information technology studies, the perceived value of using mobile internet services on portable devices has a beneficial impact on adoption intention (Yang et al., 2016; Naami et al., 2017). Comment 10: Jiangsu 1100 8.6 The value in the table is incorrect. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: 100 (8.6) Comment 11: “This study’s findings offer valuable insights into how elderly consumers adopt WMDs.” Only 6.5% of the respondents were over 60 years old. Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: Changed to senior adult as around 85% of the respondents are more than 40 years old. Comment 12: In the introduction section, the authors should mention more extensively the numerous experiences available concerning the use of WD in the management of health (suggested ref: PMID: 34018047; PMID: 30405913; PMID: 33802029). Author(s) Reply: Amended Accordingly. Thank you very much for your thoughtful suggestions. Amendment in the Manuscript: Currently available smartphone-based WMDs include various types of motion sensors and bio-sensors that can record feedback on a patient's mobility status and other physical activities based on data collected on a daily basis, allowing for a more objective assessment of possible therapies (Abbadessa et al., 2021; Sparaco, 2018). The WMD's data can be utilized alone or in combination with pharmaceuticals, devices, or other treatments to improve patient care and health outcomes, especially in the case of chronic conditions (Abbadessa, 2022). Reference: Abbadessa, G., Brigo, F., Clerico, M., De Mercanti, S., Trojsi, F., Tedeschi, G., … Lavorgna, L. (2022). Digital therapeutics in neurology. Journal of Neurology, 269(3), 1209-1224. doi:10.1007/s00415-021-10608-4 Abbadessa, G., Lavorgna, L., Miele, G., Mignone, A., Signoriello, E., Lus, G., … Bonavita, S. (2021). Assessment of multiple sclerosis disability progression using a wearable biosensor: A pilot study. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10(6), 1160. doi:10.3390/jcm10061160 Sparaco, M., Lavorgna, L., Conforti, R., Tedeschi, G., & Bonavita, S. (2018). The role of wearable devices in multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis International, 2018, 1-7. doi:10.1155/2018/7627643 Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reply to Reviewer(s) Comments - WMD - PLOS One-.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269256.r002
18 May 2022 Decision Letter - Luigi Lavorgna, Editor Modelling the Mass Adoption Potential of Wearable Medical Devices PONE-D-22-07166R1 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, Luigi Lavorgna Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269256.r003
Formally Accepted
23 May 2022 Acceptance Letter - Luigi Lavorgna, Editor PONE-D-22-07166R1 Modelling the Mass Adoption Potential of Wearable Medical Devices Dear Dr. Al Mamun: 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. Luigi Lavorgna Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269256.r004

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 .