Non-destructive test-based assessment of uniaxial compressive strength and elasticity modulus of intact carbonate rocks using stacking ensemble models

Davood Fereidooni; Zohre Karimi; Fatemeh Ghasemi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302944

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 18, 2023
7 Feb 2024 Decision Letter - Xianggang Cheng, Editor PONE-D-23-41172Developing two stacking ensemble learning models for predicting uniaxial compressive strength and elasticity modulus of intact carbonate rocks from non-destructive simple laboratory test resultsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Fereidooni, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: The author used machine learning methods to explore rock mechanical parameters. This work has certain engineering significance. Based on the reviewers' comments, I will make a decision on major revisions. I noticed that most of the references in the article are old, and I encourage the author to replace references within the past three years. In addition, the reviewer also gave the corresponding reference index. I suggest that the author can choose whether to cite it based on the article itself. Please add corresponding data and command flow to the paper so that readers can reproduce this work. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 23 2024 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, Xianggang Cheng 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. In your Methods section, please provide additional information regarding the permits you obtained for the work. Please ensure you have included the full name of the authority that approved the field site access and, if no permits were required, a brief statement explaining why. 3. Please note that PLOS ONE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse. Additional Editor Comments: The author used machine learning methods to explore rock mechanical parameters. This work has certain engineering significance. Based on the reviewers' comments, I will make a decision on major revisions. I noticed that most of the references in the article are old, and I encourage the author to replace references within the past three years. In addition, the reviewer also gave the corresponding reference index. I suggest that the author can choose whether to cite it based on the article itself. Please add corresponding data and command flow to the paper so that readers can reproduce this work. [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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes 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: Yes ****** 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 manuscript provides a prediction method for UCS and E, which is interesting. The writing logic is clear, the content is substantial, and it has some research significance. Before accepting publication, some content can be improved: 1. Each group underwent four experiments to obtain values for "γd and ne." Were these data processed? Were certain experimental data excluded? Are all these data related to predicting rock parameters? "Four experiments were conducted for each rock, resulting in a total of 280 specimens tested in this step to determine the average values of γd and ne." 2. All variables appearing in equations "(2) and (3)" should be accompanied by units. 3. All variables in the figures should be presented in italics, such as in Figure 5. 4. Before delving into the detailed methodology, please provide an overall technical flowchart for a clearer understanding of the entire rock parameter prediction process. 5. Sections 4.1-4.2 involve data processing; consider whether placing them in the results section would be more appropriate. 6. Text in Figure 9 obscures parts of the image. 7. Some table titles are excessively long; consider simplifying, particularly for Table 3 and Table 4. 8. The discussion section can be added to fully illustrate the limitations, advantages, future research plans, applicability, and improvement suggestions of the proposed prediction method. Some content can be placed in the discussion section, such as:“In spite of high generalization ability and good accuracy of the studied base models ... exploit the advantages of other models.” 9. The manuscript provides a parameter prediction method for a specific type of rock. For other rocks, which parameters may change? I have some interest in this, and some suggestions for model parameter debugging may serve as a good reference for future research. 10. When assessing the superiority of the model, consider not only predictive accuracy but also factors like computation time. The author should provide a comparison of the calculation times or other evaluation parameters for different methods of predicting rock parameters. 11. Consider adding some recent literature related to rock mechanics to enrich the reference material, such as: [1]10.1007/s10064-017-1210-5 [2]10.1016/j.ijrmms.2017.03.012 [3]10.1016/j.fuel.2023.129584 Reviewer #2: In the present study, the researchers have implemented stacking ensemble, SVR, RF, XGBoost, MLP models to predict the uniaxial compressive strength and elastic modulus of intact carbonated rocks using non-destructive test results. The research is good but revision is needed. My specific comments are as follows: 1. Revise the title to "Non-Destructive Test-Based Assessment of Uniaxial Compressive Strength and Elastic Modulus of Intact Carbonated Rocks using Stacking Ensemble Models." 2. The abstract is well written and presented. It is suggested to include the RMSE results for best model in abstract. 3. The authors are suggested to improve the literature by including published article during 2018-2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-023-00357-4, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03537-1, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41939-023-00191-8, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41939-022-00137-6, etc. 4. Please include the gap found in the literature study, objectives of the present work, and research significance at the end of the introduction section. 5. It is suggested to perform the Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient, frequency distribution of variables, and descriptive statistics using the following articles: (a) Khatti, J. and Grover, K., 2022. A study of relationship among correlation coefficient, performance, and overfitting using regression analysis. International Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research, 13, pp.1074-1085. (b) https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2022.43662, (c) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6774-0_16 6. It is suggested to discuss the research methodology with flow chart in new section 2 Research Methodology. Also, include subsection 4.1 as 3.6 Hyperparameter Tunning (mention the configuration of hyperparameters). 7. The authors used RMSE, MAE, R2, and MSE performance metrics. Any specific reason to implement these metrics. It is suggested to implement VAF, IOS, IOA, a20-index, WMAPE, MAPE, and PI metrics to analyze the results and reliability of models using the following articles: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-46064-5, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2023.105912, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11831-023-10024-z, 8. It is suggested to revise the sensitivity analysis and give proper citation. Kindly mention “the cosine amplitude method is used to determine the sensitivity of input variables”. Please consider the following articles: https://doi.org/10.12989/cac.2024.33.1.055, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-023-02643-x, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2022.12.034 9. Please revise the conclusion section. Report crisp conclusions as per the objectives mapped for the present research. Also, mention the limitations and advantages of developed optimum models. 10. Check the manuscript for axis titles for each graph. 11. Check the complete manuscript for grammatical and punctuation errors. 12. It is strongly suggested to follow the journal guidelines for reference writing and their citation. The research is technically sound, but a major revision is required before further processing. ****** 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.0302944.r001
Revision 1
26 Mar 2024 Author Response REVISION NOTES Manuscript number: PONE-D-23-41172 Title: “Developing two stacking ensemble learning models for predicting uniaxial compressive strength and elasticity modulus of intact carbonate rocks from non-destructive simple laboratory test results” March 17, 2024 Dear Editor, Thank you and the reviewers very much for your useful and constructing comments and suggestions on the manuscript. After carefully read them, we tried to follow your recommendations as close as possible and have modified the manuscript accordingly. The detailed responses to all of the comments are listed below point by point. The performed corrections are marked by red color in the file of “Manuscript marked-up Version (R1)”. I would be grateful if you would examine the possibility of this paper for publication. I look forward to hear from you as soon as possible. Please do not hesitate to contact me for any more clarifications. Sincerely yours Corresponding author Response to the comments of Editor Editor Comments: The author used machine learning methods to explore rock mechanical parameters. This work has certain engineering significance. Based on the reviewers' comments, I will make a decision on major revisions. I noticed that most of the references in the article are old, and I encourage the author to replace references within the past three years. In addition, the reviewer also gave the corresponding reference index. I suggest that the author can choose whether to cite it based on the article itself. Please add corresponding data and command flow to the paper so that readers can reproduce this work. Reply; Thank you for your good comment. I would like to inform you that all of the corrections relevant to your comment have been done and marked by red color in the text of the manuscript (please see the file of “Manuscript, marked-up version (R1)”). Response to the comments of Reviewer #1 Reviewer #1: The manuscript provides a prediction method for UCS and E, which is interesting. The writing logic is clear, the content is substantial, and it has some research significance. Before accepting publication, some content can be improved. Reply; Thank you for your good and detailed comments throughout the manuscript. I would like to inform you that all of the corrections relevant to your comments have been done and marked by red color in the text of the manuscript (please see the file of “Manuscript, marked-up version (R1)”). 1. Each group underwent four experiments to obtain values for "γd and ne." Were these data processed? Were certain experimental data excluded? Are all these data related to predicting rock parameters? "Four experiments were conducted for each rock, resulting in a total of 280 specimens tested in this step to determine the average values of γd and ne." Reply; Thank you for your good suggestion. In fact, four experiments were performed for each rock sample and averaging was done from the four obtained numbers. It should be noted that the samples that showed wrong results in the test were repeated again to reduce the test error. The required explain was added to the text. 2. All variables appearing in equations "(2) and (3)" should be accompanied by units. Reply; Thank you for your precision. The units were added to the text. 3. All variables in the figures should be presented in italics, such as in Figure 5. Reply; It is a good comment. The mentioned figures were modified. 4. Before delving into the detailed methodology, please provide an overall technical flowchart for a clearer understanding of the entire rock parameter prediction process. Reply; Thank you for your good and constructing comments. The methodology flowchart of the research was added to the main text as Fig. 1. 5. Sections 4.1-4.2 involve data processing; consider whether placing them in the results section would be more appropriate. Reply; Thank you. Section 4.1 include the setting of doing experiments and the results are not given in it. Section 4.2 introduce the measures of evaluating the proposed method and don’t include any results. The results are given in sections 4.3 and 4.4. Therefore, while thanking the opinion of the respected referee, the authors prefer the existing segmentation to the proposed segmentation. 6. Text in Figure 9 obscures parts of the image. Reply; Thank you for your good comments. Figure 9 (Figure 11 in the revised manuscript) was altered in accordance with the hint mentioned by the esteemed referee. 7. Some table titles are excessively long; consider simplifying, particularly for Table 3 and Table 4. Reply; Thank you for your precision. All tables’ captions have been reviewed to be simple and short enough. The captions of Table 3 and Table 4 (Table 4 and 5 in the revised version) have been modified as the following: Table 3: Performance results for predicting the UCS (MPa) in the testing phase Table 4: Performance results for predicting the E (GPa) in the testing phase 8. The discussion section can be added to fully illustrate the limitations, advantages, future research plans, applicability, and improvement suggestions of the proposed prediction method. Some content can be placed in the discussion section, such as: “In spite of high generalization ability and good accuracy of the studied base models ... exploit the advantages of other models.” Reply; Thank you for your good and constructing comments. The discussion section has been added to the manuscript. The advantages, limitations, applicability, and improvement suggestions have been included in the discussion section. 9. The manuscript provides a parameter prediction method for a specific type of rock. For other rocks, which parameters may change? I have some interest in this, and some suggestions for model parameter debugging may serve as a good reference for future research. Reply; Thank you. It is very good comment. In fact, we have tried to use different rock samples to do this research, so that the effect of the used parameters can be better determined. Considering that different rocks have different nature, parameters that are common to all rocks should be used. These parameters can be physical properties of rocks that can be easily measured and can be used to estimate mechanical properties such as uniaxial compressive strength and modulus of elasticity, which are difficult to measure in the laboratory. Based on the findings of this research, in all rock types, the physical properties can be suitable parameters for estimating the mechanical properties. This is previously explained in the introduction part of the manuscript. 10. When assessing the superiority of the model, consider not only predictive accuracy but also factors like computation time. The author should provide a comparison of the calculation times or other evaluation parameters for different methods of predicting rock parameters. Reply; You are right. The authors have been added more evaluation parameters including training time, VAF, IOS, IOA, a20-index, WMAPE, MAPE, and PI. The results are given in Tables 4, 5, and 6. 11. Consider adding some recent literature related to rock mechanics to enrich the reference material, such as: [1] 10.1007/s10064-017-1210-5 [2] 10.1016/j.ijrmms.2017.03.012 [3] 10.1016/j.fuel.2023.129584 Reply; Thank you for proposing the suitable references. They were considered and applied on the introduction part to enrich it. Response to the comments of Reviewer #2 Reviewer #2: In the present study, the researchers have implemented stacking ensemble, SVR, RF, XGBoost, MLP models to predict the uniaxial compressive strength and elastic modulus of intact carbonated rocks using non-destructive test results. The research is good but revision is needed. My specific comments are as follows: Reply; Thank you for your good and detailed comments throughout the manuscript. I would like to inform you that all of the corrections relevant to your comments have been done and marked by red color in the text of the manuscript (please see the file of “Manuscript, marked-up version (R1)”). 1. Revise the title to "Non-Destructive Test-Based Assessment of Uniaxial Compressive Strength and Elastic Modulus of Intact Carbonated Rocks using Stacking Ensemble Models." Reply; Thank you for proposing the good title. The manuscript title was revised based on your good suggested title. 2. The abstract is well written and presented. It is suggested to include the RMSE results for best model in abstract. Reply; Thank you. The abstract has been updated with the inclusion of the RMSE findings. 3. The authors are suggested to improve the literature by including published article during 2018-2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-023-00357-4, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03537-1, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41939-023-00191-8, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41939-022-00137-6, etc. Reply; Thank you for proposing the suitable references. They were considered and applied on the introduction part to enrich it. 4. Please include the gap found in the literature study, objectives of the present work, and research significance at the end of the introduction section. Reply; Thank you for your good and constructing comments. The introduction section is modified by the authors in order to provide a clear explanation of the research gap. 5. It is suggested to perform the Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient, frequency distribution of variables, and descriptive statistics using the following articles: (a) Khatti, J. and Grover, K., 2022. A study of relationship among correlation coefficient, performance, and overfitting using regression analysis. International Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research, 13, pp.1074-1085. (b) https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2022.43662, (c) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6774-0_16 Reply; Thanks for your suggestions and the references. Descriptive statistics has been added to the paper in Table 2 and the Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient is shown in Fig. 3. The frequency distribution of variables is demonstrated in Fig. 2. 6. It is suggested to discuss the research methodology with flow chart in new section 2 Research Methodology. Also, include subsection 4.1 as 3.6 Hyperparameter Tunning (mention the configuration of hyperparameters). Reply; Thank you for your good and constructing comments. The methodology flowchart of the research was added to section 2 as Fig. 1. 7. The authors used RMSE, MAE, R2, and MSE performance metrics. Any specific reason to implement these metrics. It is suggested to implement VAF, IOS, IOA, a20-index, WMAPE, MAPE, and PI metrics to analyze the results and reliability of models using the following articles: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-46064-5, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2023.105912, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11831-023-10024-z, Reply; Thank you for your comment. The method that has been suggested has been assessed using all of the metrics that were mentioned by the reviewer. The outcomes of this evaluation have been presented in Tables 4 and 5. A comprehensive analysis of the results can be found in the discussion section. 8. It is suggested to revise the sensitivity analysis and give proper citation. Kindly mention “the cosine amplitude method is used to determine the sensitivity of input variables”. Please consider the following articles: https://doi.org/10.12989/cac.2024.33.1.055, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-023-02643-x, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2022.12.034 Reply; Thank you for proposing the suitable references. The section on sensitivity analysis has been revised to include the appropriate citation, as instructed by the reviewer (regrettably, the authors were unable to locate the first specified paper). 9. Please revise the conclusion section. Report crisp conclusions as per the objectives mapped for the present research. Also, mention the limitations and advantages of developed optimum models. Reply; You are right. The results section was revised to cover all the issues considered by the respected referee. 10. Check the manuscript for axis titles for each graph. Reply; Thank you for proposing the good title. The manuscript title was revised based on your suggested title. 11. Check the complete manuscript for grammatical and punctuation errors. Reply; Thank you. On the basis of your suggestion, the manuscript has been edited from grammatical and punctuation point of view. 12. It is strongly suggested to follow the journal guidelines for reference writing and their citation. Reply; Thank you. Required corrections were done. The research is technically sound, but a major revision is required before further processing. Finally, the authors would like to thank for your kindly suggestions through the manuscript. Best regards Corresponding Author Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Revision notes (R1).docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302944.r002
10 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Xianggang Cheng, Editor PONE-D-23-41172R1Non-destructive test-based assessment of uniaxial compressive strength and elasticity modulus of intact carbonate rocks using stacking ensemble modelsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Fereidooni, 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 May 25 2024 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, Xianggang Cheng 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. Additional Editor Comments: Hi, Davood Fereidooni, My opinion is to accept after minor revision. In order to make the reader clear about your conclusion, please list them. In addition, many of the images in the manuscript are not clear, please replace them with vector graphics. Please delete at least 6 references from references 38-47. [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: 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: All my concerns have been addressed, and I recommend publishing it. Perhaps this paper will offer some new insights into the uniaxial compression parameters of rocks. Reviewer #2: The authors have incorporated all modifications and corrections well. Therefore, the revised manuscript is accepted. ****** 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.0302944.r003
Revision 2
11 Apr 2024 Author Response Dear Editor, Thank you and the reviewers very much for your kindness and useful comments and suggestions on the manuscript. After carefully read them, we followed your recommendations and modified the manuscript accordingly. The detailed responses to all of the comments are listed below point by point. The performed corrections are marked by red color in the file of “Manuscript marked-up Version (R2)”. I would be grateful if you would examine the possibility of this paper for publication. I look forward to hear from you as soon as possible. Please do not hesitate to contact me for any more clarifications. Sincerely yours Corresponding author Response to the comments of Editor Editor Comments: 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. Reply; Thank you. The manuscript was reviewed for the items mentioned. There are no potential issues that apply to the manuscript. Additional Editor Comments: Hi, Davood Fereidooni, my opinion is to accept after minor revision. Reply; Thank you for your kindness. In order to make the reader clear about your conclusion, please list them. Reply; Thank you for your good comment. The conclusion section was presented in the form of numbered paragraphs. In addition, many of the images in the manuscript are not clear, please replace them with vector graphics. Reply; Thank you for you good comment. I did not understand which images are not clear. Also, the images cannot be rendered with vector graphics. Anyway, I checked all the images and increased quality of some images if needed. Please delete at least 6 references from references 38-47. Reply; Thank you. Seven references were deleted from the list and they removed from the main text of the manuscript. All required correction were done. Finally, the authors would like to thank for your kindly suggestions through the manuscript. Best regards Corresponding Author Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Revision notes (R2).docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302944.r004
15 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Xianggang Cheng, Editor Non-destructive test-based assessment of uniaxial compressive strength and elasticity modulus of intact carbonate rocks using stacking ensemble models PONE-D-23-41172R2 Dear Dr. Fereidooni, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Xianggang Cheng Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302944.r005
Formally Accepted
29 Apr 2024 Acceptance Letter - Xianggang Cheng, Editor PONE-D-23-41172R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Fereidooni, 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. Xianggang Cheng Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302944.r006

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