PONE-D-22-19090Storage Strategy of Outbound Containers with Uncertain Weight by Data-driven Hybrid Genetic Simulated Annealing AlgorithmPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. wang,

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 22 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,

Seyedali Mirjalili

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 ensure that you include a title page within your main document. You should list all authors and all affiliations as per our author instructions and clearly indicate the corresponding author.

[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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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: No

**********

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

**********

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 topic of this manuscript is interesting, however, the following major issues should be addressed. I hope the authors will not be dispirited and these comments can help them to improve their manuscript.

1. The authors are recommended to revise the Abstract and consider the claim (s) and finding (s) of this study.

2. The novelty of this study is not clear, it is recommended to revise the Introduction by considering the novelty and importance of this study.

3. What is the superiority of your work compared to existing works? It is recommended to state the contributions of this study.

4. The property and constraints of the problem should be stated; please clarify that it is a single objective or multi-objective problem?

5. It is recommended to change the title of the section “Container stacking strategy based on Hybrid Genetic And SAA (HGASA)” to “Container stacking strategy based on hybrid genetic and simulated annealing algorithm (HGASA)”.

6. How do the authors are hybridized a discrete algorithm GA with continuous algorithm SA? Please clarify and added the stepwise of this hybridizing.

7. This study suffers from a fresh literature review. It is recommended to boost the literature review of this study by deep diving into recent optimizers like recent works, Starling murmuration optimizer: A novel bio-inspired algorithm for global and engineering optimization and QANA: Quantum-based avian navigation optimizer algorithm.

8. There is a miss understanding of the data-driven concept and novelty of this study please clarify. The schematic of figure 1 is different from its description. Please rewrite the data-driven theory section.

9. This study introduced a hybrid optimization algorithm and needs to address the recent hybrid and improved variants of metaheuristic algorithms like hybrid algorithms, Migration-based moth-flame optimization algorithm, and An improved moth-flame optimization algorithm with adaptation mechanism to solve numerical and mechanical engineering problems.

10. The well- organization of this manuscript can increase its quality. Then it is recommended to consider the proposed method section ( 3. The proposed algorithm, 4. Experimental evaluation …).

11. It is suggested to increase the understanding of Figure 3 by adding more details to it.

12. Change Lg in Eq. (1) to log. Also please check Eq. (3). The description of parameters is needed.

13. Eqs. 5, 6, and 7 are not clear.

14. The direction of some lines was not determined in Figures 6 and 10.

15. The authors recommend providing a subsection of in-depth experimental analysis to investigate the impact analysis of claims. Also, the paper requires very deep analysis from different perspectives.

16. It is recommended to determine the overall effectiveness of the proposed algorithm using the effectiveness metric proposed and used in recent works, DMDE: Diversity-maintained multi-trial vector differential evolution algorithm for non-decomposition large-scale global optimization and Hybridizing of Whale and Moth-Flame Optimization Algorithms to Solve Diverse Scales of Optimal Power Flow Problem.

17. It is recommended to consider the pseudocode of the proposed algorithm

18. Please consider a table and mentioned the description of all parameters.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript, in its present form, contains several weaknesses. Adequate revisions to the following points should be undertaken to justify the recommendation for publication.

1. The contribution is not stated also add at the end of the introduction section.

2. All the sections and subsections must be included in the text, Such as :( Related theories and concepts, etc.).

3. I recommend adding new meta-heuristic algorithms to the introduction section as a related work

4. The discussion of the results should be expanded. The conclusions should include what implications. this work has and what impact this research may have on the sector.

5. I recommend redesigning the flowcharts with better quality

6. the conclusion section is petite

7. The conclusion section has many weaknesses, it is strongly recommended to rewrite this section. also, please add future work to the conclusion section and discuss it briefly.

8. Please add the system specifications used for the evaluation

9. Please clarify that the problem space for optimizing this problem is discrete or continuous

10. It is recommended that you share the code

**********

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.

Storage Strategy of Outbound Containers with Uncertain Weight by Data-driven Hybrid Genetic Simulated Annealing Algorithm

PONE-D-22-19090R1

Dear Dr. wang,

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,

Seyedali Mirjalili

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 #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: The authors have responded to my comments and the revised manuscript is good enough to be accepted for publishing.

Reviewer #2: The authors have made significant improvements in the revised version. In my opinion, this version of the paper is suitable for publication.

**********

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

**********