Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 5, 2022
Decision Letter - Sathishkumar V E, Editor

PONE-D-22-18924Hybrid of deep learning and exponential smoothing for enhancing crime forecasting accuracyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Butt,

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 Sep 24 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Sathishkumar V E

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"Sukumar Letchmunan: This work was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for Fundamental 537 Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) with Project Code:FRGS/1/2020/TK03/USM/02/1, 538

School of Computer Sciences and University Sains Malaysia (USM)."

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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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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 #3: In this paper, the authors apply machine learning, deep learning and transfer learning models along with word weighting and embedding schemes to generate framework to classify industry specific regulations. The various combinations of techniques used by the authors are appreciable. The paper is well organized and written. The interpretation and description of the experimental results are also explained clearly. However, this manuscript have some weak points, it should be further improved before consider for publication. Some of my observations are

1. Figures 1,2,3,7 need to be drawn clearly and explanation about each figure to be incorporated in corresponding section.

2. In figure 5, x-axis legend is not mentioned and proper explanation is required.

3. In figure 9, only 8 classes are displayed? What about other classes. Justification is required.

4. Why validation is not performed? Justify

5. Why the authors specifically choose CNN and LSTM classifiers?

6. According to the results obtained, if statistical models perform better than machine, deep and transfer learning models, then what is the use of these latest techniques for analysis? Is hypertuning of these models not done properly? Justification is required.

Reviewer #4: Indicate the numerical outcome of the proposed system in the abstract section

Introduction can be more elaborate

Why rsquared value is not considered? r2 value representsd the fitness value of a model.

Future work can be aded at the end of introduction section

Figure 1 should be simplified.

Add the aplications of the proposed work.

What is the need for hybrid or ensemble models as conventional models can yield better performance?

Explain the need and the process of proposed work in detail

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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

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes: Usha Moorthy

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Revision 1

We are thankful to the respected reviewers for their valuable time and suggestions to enhance the quality of this study. We addressed all the concerns of the reviewers and incorporated in the document.

Decision Letter - Sathishkumar V E, Editor

Hybrid of deep learning and exponential smoothing for enhancing crime forecasting accuracy

PONE-D-22-18924R1

Dear Dr. Butt,

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,

Sathishkumar V E

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

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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: All comments, queries and explanations are addressed and the article is ready for publication. I recommend for acceptance

Reviewer #3: In this paper, the authors apply hybrid model by combining exponential smoothing and Bi-LSTM for crime forecasting. The various combinations of techniques used by the authors are appreciable. The paper is well written. The interpretation and description of the experimental results are also explained clearly.

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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

Reviewer #4: Yes: Usha Moorthy

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Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Sathishkumar V E, Editor

PONE-D-22-18924R1

Hybrid of deep learning and exponential smoothing for enhancing crime forecasting accuracy

Dear Dr. Butt:

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. Sathishkumar V E

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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