Nexus between energy efficiency, green investment, urbanization and environmental quality: Evidence from MENA region

Chen Gang; He Sha; Md Qamruzzaman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0295628

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 9, 2023
31 Aug 2023 Decision Letter - Magdalena Radulescu, Editor PONE-D-23-21340Nexus between Energy Efficiency, Green investment, urbanization and Environmental Quality: Evidence from MENA RegionPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Qamruzzaman, 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 address carefully all reviewers' suggestions and elaborate a response letter for reviewers. Also mark in color all changes made into the manuscript Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 15 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, Magdalena Radulescu 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 noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed: 1) JinRu, L. and Qamruzzaman, M., 2022. Nexus between environmental innovation, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability in G7: What is the role of institutional quality?. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10, p.860244. 2) Xia C, Qamruzzaman M, Adow AH. An Asymmetric Nexus: Remittance-Led Human Capital Development in the Top 10 Remittance-Receiving Countries: Are FDI and Gross Capital Formation Critical for a Road to Sustainability? Sustainability. 2022; 14(6):3703. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14063703 3)Akram, R., Chen, F., Khalid, F., Ye, Z. and Majeed, M.T., 2020. Heterogeneous effects of energy efficiency and renewable energy on carbon emissions: Evidence from developing countries. Journal of cleaner production, 247, p.119122. In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: “: This study received a supplementary research grant from the Institute for Advanced Research (IAR), United International Uinversity (UIU).” Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 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. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors, Based on reviewers'reports we have decided major revision. Please address carefully all reviewers'suggestions and elaborate a response letter for reviewers. Also mark in color all changes made into the manuscript. Best regards, [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Comments from PLOS Editorial Office: We note that one or more reviewers has recommended that you cite specific previously published works. As always, we recommend that you please review and evaluate the requested works to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. It is not a requirement to cite these works. We appreciate your attention to this request. 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: No ******** 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: 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: ID: PONE-D-23-21340 Title: Nexus between Energy Efficiency, Green investment, urbanization and Environmental Quality: Evidence from MENA Region 1) The introduction is too long and should definitely be shortened. 2) The literature is also very long and many current studies are missing. Shorten the literature and discuss the literature gap more broadly. 3) Make use of the following studies on the environment in the literature: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23160-z; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136802; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.117080; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.121138; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2023.05.018; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137241 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.11634; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103352; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2023.101683; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2023.01.009 4) In Table 1, write the OECD reference 94 on the correct line. 5) Fit Table 3 to the page 6) Table 4, Rustles of. Specify results. 7) There are too many grammatical and spelling mistakes. Please review the article completely and correct the errors. 8) You must present the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ charts. 9) Mention about future research in detail. My decision is revision. Reviewer #2: The paper studies the nexus between energy efficiency, green investment, urbanization and environmental quality in the MENA Region. Although the topic is interesting, the paper is flawed from many perspectives, as follows: 1. The Background of the study is way too long, with many paragraphs that are only repeating previous information. 2. The Literature review is also very long and the reader is lost among ideas that are not organized. 3. It is not at all clear why several estimation methodologies are used. What is the purpose of using them? 4. I believe the mathematical explanations of these methodologies are not necessary and they unnecessarily increase the size of the manuscript. 5. The data used in the study is not presented - the reader does not know the countries included, the frequency of the data. Therefore, all the estimation tables are useless. Also, the time frame is presented as 2004-2019, but no explanation of its relevance is presented. 6. The panel estimations do not include control variables, therefore one can seriously raise the issue of robustness of the findings. Unless the author corrects these flaws, the paper is not publishable. ****** 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295628.r001
Revision 1
19 Sep 2023 Author Response Editor-in-Chief PLOS ONE Subject: Resubmission of Manuscript - PONE-D-23-21340 Dear Editor-in-Chief, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to submit a revised version of our manuscript titled "Nexus between Energy Efficiency, Green Investment, Urbanization, and Environmental Quality: Evidence from MENA Region," identified by the Manuscript ID - PONE-D-23-21340. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the reviewers for their valuable feedback and constructive comments, which have significantly enhanced the quality of our work. In response to the reviewers' comments, we have made the following improvements to the manuscript: Reviewer #1: 1. We have shortened the introduction section, as suggested by the reviewer, to provide a more concise and focused opening. 2. The literature review section has been revised to be more succinct, and we have incorporated the recommended literature references to better address the literature gap. 3. We have ensured that Table 1 accurately references OECD reference 94 on the correct line. 4. Table 3 has been adjusted to fit properly on the page. 5. We have added more specific information to Table 4 to clarify the results presented. 6. The entire manuscript has been thoroughly reviewed for grammatical and spelling mistakes, resulting in improved language quality. 7. We have explained the unavailability of CUSUM and CUSUMSQ charts, as the study primarily focuses on panel data, which does not support these charts. 8. A detailed discussion of future research has been included in the conclusion section, as recommended by the reviewer. Reviewer #2: 1. The background section has been condensed to eliminate unnecessary repetition. 2. The literature review has been revised to improve organization and clarity. 3. We have provided an explanation of why several estimation methodologies were used, emphasizing the support they offer for empirical nexus assessment. 4. We have maintained mathematical explanations for the estimation methodologies to enhance reader understanding and accuracy. 5. The data used in the study, including the countries included, data frequency, and relevance of the time frame (2004-2019), has been clarified in the Methodology section. 6. We have addressed the concern about control variables in panel estimations, explaining the suitability of the advanced econometric techniques employed and their ability to handle endogeneity and biased estimation. We believe that these revisions have significantly improved the clarity, focus, and overall quality of our manuscript. We kindly request that you consider our resubmission for further evaluation. Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to hearing from you regarding the progress of our manuscript in the review process. Sincerely, Dr. Md. Qamruzzaman Professor Point-by-point response Reviewer #1: ID: PONE-D-23-21340 Title: Nexus between Energy Efficiency, Green investment, urbanization and Environmental Quality: Evidence from MENA Region 1) The introduction is too long and should definitely be shortened. Response: Dear reviewer, following your suggestion, the condensed form of the introduction has been prepared 2) the literature is also very long and many current studies are missing. Shorten the literature and discuss the literature gap more broadly. 3) Make use of the following studies on the environment in the literature: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23160-z; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136802; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.117080 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.121138; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2023.05.018; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137241 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.11634; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103352 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2023.101683; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2023.01.009 Response: Dear reviewer, thank you so much for your valuable guidance and worthwhile literature suggestion, which is fully included and minimized in the literature review section 4) In Table 1, write the OECD reference 94 on the correct line. Response: Dear reviewer, thank you so very much for correcting me. 5) Fit Table 3 to the page Response: Revised accordingly 6) Table 4, Rustles of. Specify results. Response: Revised accordingly 7) There are too many grammatical and spelling mistakes. Please review the article completely and correct the errors. Response: Der esteemed reviewer, the entire manuscript has been proofread to improve the language quality 8) You must present the CUSUM and CUSUMSQ charts. Response: Dear esteemed reviewer, the above chart is only possible for time series data analysis. This study focused on panel data. Thus, the suggested chart is not possible to derive. 9) Mention about future research in detail. Dear reviewer, please see the inclusion of future studies in the conclusion section; thank you so much for your suggestion. Reviewer #2: The paper studies the nexus between energy efficiency, green investment, urbanization and environmental quality in the MENA Region. Although the topic is interesting, the paper is flawed from many perspectives, as follows: 1. The Background of the study is way too long, with many paragraphs that are only repeating previous information. Dear reviewer, the introduction section has been revisited and condensed accordingly. 2. The Literature review is also very long and the reader is lost among ideas that are not organized. Response: Esteemed reviewer, following your suggestions, the entire literature review section has been revised with precision 3. It is not at all clear why several estimation methodologies are used. What is the purpose of using them? Response: Dear reviewer, for the liner assessment study, implement both ARDL and C_ARDL since the data is cross-sectional dependent and for asymmetric assessment, the novel NARDL framework has been implemented. Implementing robust and advanced techniques supports the empirical assessment and offers diverse ways of epical nexus assessment. 4. I believe the mathematical explanations of these methodologies are not necessary and they unnecessarily increase the size of the manuscript. Response: Dear reviewer, producing the mathematical expression of an empirical equation for the reader and estimation actuary is mandatory. 5. The data used in the study is not presented - the reader does not know the countries included the frequency of the data. Therefore, all the estimation tables are useless. Also, the time frame is presented as 2004-2019, but no explanation of its relevance is presented. Response: Esteemed reviewer, please see the data subsection in Methodology we have prepared a paragraph focusing on your suggestion and query. 6. The panel estimations do not include control variables. Therefore, one can seriously raise the issue of the robustness of the findings. Dear esteemed reviewer, control variables can be considered in panel data estimation with a lower degree of econometrical techniques. However, this study has implemented advanced econometrical techniques; that is, both C-ARDL and NARDL models can address the endogeneity and biased estimation. Thus, it is unnecessary to add control variables in empirical estimation, especially with NARDL in panel data. We believe this study's findings have no issue in the case of robustness assessment. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reviewer comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295628.r002
24 Oct 2023 Decision Letter - Magdalena Radulescu, Editor PONE-D-23-21340R1Nexus between Energy Efficiency, Green investment, urbanization and Environmental Quality: Evidence from MENA RegionPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Qamruzzaman, 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 reduce the lenght of the paper as reviewers suggested. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 08 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, Magdalena Radulescu Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: (No Response) 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 made the corrections I mentioned one by one. In its current form, the article contributes to the literature and can be accepted for publication. Reviewer #2: The author has addressed the issues raised. i still believe the manuscript is too long, so an effort to reduce it size is to be appreciated. ****** 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 ******** [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.0295628.r003
Revision 2
30 Oct 2023 Author Response Dear esteemed reviewer, we have condense the final version following your suggestion Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reviewer comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295628.r004
27 Nov 2023 Decision Letter - Magdalena Radulescu, Editor Nexus between Energy Efficiency, Green investment, urbanization and Environmental Quality: Evidence from MENA Region PONE-D-23-21340R2 Dear Dr. Qamruzzaman, 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, Magdalena Radulescu 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: (No Response) 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 made major corrections. The article can be accepted for publication with this form. Reviewer #2: The authors have considered my comments and the manuscript has been modified accordingly. I congratulate them on their work. ****** 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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295628.r005
Formally Accepted
18 Dec 2023 Acceptance Letter - Magdalena Radulescu, Editor PONE-D-23-21340R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Qamruzzaman, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Magdalena Radulescu Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295628.r006

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 .