PONE-D-23-33158A novel MCGDM technique based on correlation coefficients under probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment and its application in clinical comprehensive evaluation of orphan drugsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hu,

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PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

The reviewers were not positive with your paper. Once the reviewers comments are carefully addressed the paper can be assessed again.

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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: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: 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 scientific article titled "A novel MCGDM technique based on correlation coefficients under probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment and its application in clinical comprehensive evaluation of orphan drugs" tackles the intricate task of decision-making within the nuanced context of probabilistic hesitant fuzzy sets (PHFSs). The manuscript strides into the realm of improving decision-making methodologies by proposing new correlation coefficients designed to address the limitations of existing ones for PHFSs, which is indeed a complex and forward-looking objective. The manuscript presents a promising and relevant study within the field of clinical evaluation, particularly the assessment of orphan drugs. It builds on the premise that PHFSs can overcome the problem of preference information loss—an issue not negligible in decision-making frameworks. The authors' initiative to advance the MCGDM method by incorporating a mechanism to convert linguistic variables into probabilistic hesitant fuzzy information suggests a nuanced understanding of the actual decision-making processes and showcases the manuscript's innovative aspect. Notwithstanding the paper's potential, several areas need to be refined for it to reach its full scholarly impact. The language requires meticulous proofreading by a native speaker to meet the academic standards expected for publication. Moreover, the article lacks a distinctive presentation of novelty; there is a noted absence of a compelling argument that clearly defines what sets this research apart from existing studies, a delineation of its unique contributions, and a discussion of its limitations. The manuscript should offer a more expansive comparison to contemporary methods such as "PT-TOPSIS methods for multi-attribute group decision making under single-valued neutrosophic sets" or "EDAS method for multiple attribute group decision making under spherical fuzzy environment," highlighting both similarities and differences. In addition, a broader literature review and a more comprehensive background on MCDA would fortify the study's contextual relevance and scholarly depth. The inclusion of a succinct comparison with methodologies such as SPOTIS, ESP-COMET, SIMUS, TOPSIS-DARIA, RANCOM, and others, is essential to demonstrate the robustness and relevance of the proposed MCGDM technique. Such an analysis would allow the authors to position their method within the current landscape of MCDA tools, revealing its potential advantages, limitations, and differentiating factors. Moreover, this comparison is pivotal to emphasize the novelty and original contribution of the work, as it showcases how the proposed technique performs in contrast to these well-established methods. By directly comparing the proposed correlation coefficients and the MCGDM method with these techniques, the authors would have the opportunity to elucidate specific scenarios where their method may offer superior results or perhaps identify situations where it may not be the optimal choice. This comparative discussion would significantly enhance the manuscript's academic rigor and provide readers with a clearer understanding of the proposed method's place within the broader context of MCDA research. Furthermore, the research would benefit substantially from detailing the process of constructing the decision matrix and justifying the selection of the criteria involved. There's also an apparent need for the research to augment its contribution by, for instance, employing sensitivity analysis to assess the robustness of the proposed MCGDM method. Additionally, expanding the number of alternatives considered in the case study would provide a more thorough examination of the method's applicability and reliability. Finally, the introduction section demands elaboration to set the stage for the readers properly, providing them with a firm grasp of the research context, the prevailing challenges, and the envisioned solutions.

I suggest a major revision.

Reviewer #2: The paper presents a concept based on correlation coefficients under probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment and its application in clinical comprehensive evaluation of orphan drugs

Although the concept is potentially interesting, it is unfortunately not translated into a strong methodological and practical contribution.

- The authors do not provide sufficient motivation for the study

- The authors do not benchmark their approach against reference approaches

Once these shortcomings have been remedied, the paper can be re-evaluated

Reviewer #3: This paper proposes a new MCGDM method through improved correlation coefficients under probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment to evaluate orphan drugs. In my opinion, this work has some merits. I have some suggestions:

1. The literature review part is not just list literatures, you should find the research gap and the implications of your research through the literature review part. However, I can’t see it. I suggest author also should clarify the limitations of existing literatures more clearly, list as 1,2,3….Besides, I suggest adding a separate literature review section.

2. Although this article has been a comprehensive overview, Some classic methods should be mentioned, such as Best-Worst method (BWM), Weighted Aggregated Sum-Product Assessment (WASPAS), SMART (Simple Multi-attribute Rating Technique), DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory),etc. I suggest that the author needs to add relevant content to discuss the reasons why chose to use correlation coefficients this method.

3. The comparison analysis between the proposed method and the existing method and the discussion of the results should be more in-depth.

4. I noticed that some of the references were not convincing enough and suggested updating them.

5. In the conclusion part, the limitations of this paper need to be discussed

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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A novel MCGDM technique based on correlation coefficients under probabilistic hesitant fuzzy environment and its application in clinical comprehensive evaluation of orphan drugs

PONE-D-23-33158R1

Dear Dr. Hu,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Fausto Cavallaro, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The authors addressed the reviewers comments.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: N/A

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 paper has been improved. There are some small edits mistakes which can be removed in the proofreading stage. Therefore, it can be accepted in its current form.

Reviewer #2: The Authors made great effort to improve the manuscript

I found my previous suggestions adressed

I suggest to accept the paper

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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