PONE-D-23-16198A construction method of reverberation suppression filter using an end-to-end networkPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Zhang,

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 Aug 19 2023 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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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

“This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of

China (Grant No. 91938204,41527901and 61701462), the Marine S&T fund of

Shandong Province for Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology

(Qingdao) (No.2018SDKJ0210) , Open Studio for Marine High Frequency

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“Hao Zhang was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation

of China under Grant 91938204，41527901，61701462. URL of the funder website is

‘https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/’.

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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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: No

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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: No

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: The Reverberation Suppression Network (RS-U-Net) proposed in this article is used to suppress the reverberation of the underwater echo signal, effectively improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the echo signal. But there are several glaring problems in the current manuscript.

1.The effective suppression of RS-U-Net lies in its jump network structure, and the signal features are no longer easy to lose after multi-layer convolution. The effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper can be demonstrated in comparing algorithms. It is recommended to add other similar U-shaped network experiments to highlight the effectiveness of reverberation suppression.

2.The RS-U-Net structure proposed in the article is an improvement of the U-shaped network. The general structure of the network is similar to the end-to-end filter Wav-U-net and Demucs. It is recommended that the article focus on describing the advantages of RS-U-Net in suppressing reverberation. The article needs to highlight the innovations, and focus on a detailed description of the innovations, such as explaining the proposed RS-U-Net structure, the sonar echo signal processing method, etc.

3.There are too many pictures, it is recommended to combine the same type of pictures into one large picture, so that readers can understand and compare the pictures.

4.The empirical formula of shallow sea noise spectrum level has different expressions at different levels, so there should be no universally recognized expression formula up to now, especially in the environment such as shallow sea acoustic noise, which has a certain range of recognition and rationality. It is suggested to explain the basis and source of the formula.

5.Why use simulated data instead of real data? This kind of underwater acoustic experimental data should not be difficult to obtain, is there too few useful samples or the experimental conditions are not allowed?

6.RS-U-Net is little difference from the originalU-Net network, and the significant innovation part is not fully reflected on ‘RS’.

In summary, it is suggested that the article should be major revised

Reviewer #2: The paper presents RS-U-Net, an end-to-end network for reverberation suppression in underwater echo signals, outperforming existing methods by improving signal-to-reverberation ratio (SRR) by 20dB. It claims to achieve approximately 3dB better reverberation suppression than other methods. However to support the proposed idea, very old research work is mosty examined. Very few recent papers were consulted. It needs a serious revison of related work and references. Following suggestions can be also benificial,

1) Figures lack clarity.

2) Gramatical issues needs to be properly addressed.

3) Heading 1 is relate work. Please correct to related work

4) Equation 3 and 4 needs more explaination. What is B in equation 4

5) Few figures are not properly explained.

6) Table 2 shows the experimental result that need to be further elaborated.

7) A separate section experimental setup must be added

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-23-16198R1A construction method of reverberation suppression filter using an end-to-end networkPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hao,

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 30 2023 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,

Anas Bilal, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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: (No Response)

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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

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: No

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: 1.In the described RS-U-Network construction section, we noticed the lack of elaboration on why 1D convolutions are used instead of 2D convolutions in network blocks. Considering that the use of different types of convolution operations in different fields will produce different effects, it is recommended to add a description in this section to explain why one-dimensional convolution is selected in the signal feature extraction process instead of two-dimensional convolution.This supplemental explanation can provide the reader with a deeper understanding of why 1D convolution is considered a more appropriate choice in a particular case.

2.The RS-U-Net structure proposed in the article is improved on the basis of the U-shaped network, and its focus is mainly on the detailed description of the RS-U-Net structure. However, in the RS-U-Network Construction section, the way the article is presented may cause readers to be confused, because Network Blocks are introduced first, and then Network Structure is introduced. Therefore, it is recommended to reorganize the content in this part. First, a general introduction to the overall network structure is given, and then the specific content of each network module is discussed in depth.

3.In the article, most of the references cited are from many years ago. It is recommended that the article cite the literature in recent years as much as possible to show that the method proposed in the article is closely related to the current research dynamics. New research results, new technologies and methods may emerge in the field of signal processing, which may be more powerful for supporting the discussion and method proposal of the article.

Reviewer #2: The paper updated as requested. Necessary changes have been made. Presentation of the paper is improved.

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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: Wenbo Zhu

Reviewer #2: No

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[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.

A construction method of reverberation suppression filter using an end-to-end network

PONE-D-23-16198R2

Dear Dr. Zhang,

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,

Anas Bilal, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (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 #1: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #3: 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 #3: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: Please read the manuscript carefully and improve the grammar and language mistakes. It is suggested please improve the introduction and conclusion of the study.

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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: Wenbo Zhu

Reviewer #3: No

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