PONE-D-23-09990​The performance of restricted AIC for irregular histogram modelsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. GÖKMEN,

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.

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This paper proposes a novel approach to AIC for histograms with unequal bin widths. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations and empirical examples are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the suggested approach. Overall, the paper's main idea is interesting. However, some comments and suggestions pointed out by reviewers should be addressed accordingly and need further clarification to enhance the readability purposes. 

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Kok Haur Ng, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Program of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK 281

BIDEB 2219)."

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Additional Editor Comments:

We have completed the review of your manuscript. Both of the reviewers have recommended a minor revision. When revising your manuscript, please consider all issues mentioned in the reviewers' comments, outline every change made in response to their comments and provide suitable rebuttals for any comments not addressed.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

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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

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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: In this study, a novel approach to AIC for histograms with unequal bin widths has been proposed by authors and demonstrated the advantage of the proposed approach in comparison to others using both extensive Monte Carlo simulations and empirical examples. It worthy contribution. However I have the following comments.

1)In the paper, authors may clearly described the novelty and main contributions with justification both technically and scientifically.

2) The authors need to provide solid background for research gap keeping in view most recently published articles.

3) The authors also need discuss the shortcomings of the study performed in this paper.

4) The literature review is short and should add some recently and more relavent published with main focus on the title of the paper.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled " The Performance of restricted AIC for irregular histogram models ", the author has proposed a modified approach to using AIC for histograms with different bin widths. The manuscript gives a comprehensive analysis and discussion on the proposed AIC method. There are lots of grammatical errors all over the manuscript. I suggest the author send the manuscript for proofreading.

Some minor corrections:

a. Line 45: Barron et al. (1999) develops ---- Barron et al. (1999) developed

b. All mathematics equations should be written in complete sentences, so equations must have punctuation.

C. Line 108: tables 1, 2, and 3 ---- Table 1, 2 and 3.

d. Line 109: Table 2 and 3 --- Tables 2 and 3

e. Line 195: Further , in AIC and CV, it appears----- Further, in AIC and Cv, they appear

f. Line 201: ... 9 bins and is is closer --- 9bins and it is closer

g. Line 207: AICr and CVc seems like --- Line 207: AICr and CVr seem like

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Gajendra K. Vishwakarma

Reviewer #2: No

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​The performance of restricted AIC for irregular histogram models

PONE-D-23-09990R1

Dear Dr. GÖKMEN,

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,

Kok Haur Ng, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors have made improvements as suggested. The revised manuscript sounds better.

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

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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 #1: Authors addressed the comments in the revised version nicely, Thus it is suitable for publication without any further mofdification.

Reviewer #2: (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 #1: Yes: Gajendra K. Vishwakarma

Reviewer #2: No

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