PONE-D-24-12298Annual report text's positive tone and corporate green innovation: Evidence from ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gao,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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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'.
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• 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,

Jin Hu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for your submission. The manuscript presents an interesting and relevant study on the impact of the positive tone in annual report text on corporate green innovation. The reviewers have provided constructive feedback, indicating several areas that require substantial revisions to improve the quality and clarity of the paper. Please carefully consider each reviewer's comments and address the concerns raised. If you choose to challenge or disagree with a reviewer's comment, ensure that your response is clear, logical, and supported by evidence.

When preparing your response to reviewers, please take the following into account:

1.Address each point raised by the reviewers, providing a detailed explanation of how you have resolved the issue or your rationale for disagreement.

2.Avoid including confidential information, items under copyright, or libelous or discriminatory statements in your response.

3.If you made significant changes to the manuscript, highlight those sections and explain how they enhance the paper.

The reviewers' key points for improvement include addressing endogeneity, enhancing theoretical discussions, updating the data to a more recent timeframe, improving the language and writing structure, correcting errors in equations, and adding more robust statistical analyses. Please find below the full list of comments from the reviewers and a summary of their concerns.

I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript along with your detailed response to the reviewers' comments. If you need additional time to complete the revisions, please let me know, and I will do my best to accommodate your request.

Thank you again for your submission, and I look forward to seeing your revisions.

Best regards,

Jin Hu

hujin@mail.gufe.edu.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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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 study examines the impact of the positive tone in annual report text on corporate green innovation. Using a sample of listed companies from 2010 to 2020, the authors find a significant association between a positive tone in annual reports and enhanced green innovation, both in terms of quantity and quality. Mechanism tests indicate that this effect is primarily driven by the alleviation of corporate financing constraints and increased external attention. Heterogeneity analysis suggests a stronger effect in non-state-owned and non-heavily polluting industries. Additionally, the study concludes that a positive tone in annual reports ultimately contributes to the long-term value of companies through green innovation. Overall, the study contributes significantly to the theoretical understanding of annual report text tone and provides empirical evidence supporting the role of positive tone in promoting enterprise green innovation.

1. Equation (2): There are spelling errors in Equation (2), such as "cashflow" and "growth," and there are missing subscripts, such as "it."

2. Economic Effect Analysis: Please consider incorporating an economic effect analysis similar to the approach followed by Wang et al. (2024), taking into account multiple enterprise performance indicators.

3. Endogeneity Issue: I recommend employing the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to address the endogeneity issue present in the study.

4. Theoretical Hypotheses: Please include a discussion in the theoretical hypotheses section regarding how the positive tone in annual reports can positively influence enterprises' green innovation through the mechanisms of alleviating financing constraints and enhancing external attention, as suggested by previous literature (e.g., Wang et al., 2024).

Reference:

Wang et al. (2024) "Can green funds improve corporate environmental, social, and governance performance? Evidence from Chinese-listed companies" Plos One

Reviewer #2: The manuscript "PONE-D-24-12298" examines the relationship between the positive tone of annual report text and corporate green innovation. The content of the paper is rich and displays certain innovative aspects. To enhance the quality of the paper, the authors might consider addressing the following issues:

1. The introduction mentions, "Corporate managers may deliberately use a positive tone to mislead investors to cover up the poor performance of enterprises in environmental and social domains." Is this the motivation for the research? Has the manuscript addressed this issue? If so, how?

2. The language of the manuscript requires improvement. For example, sections such as "Section 2 literature review, theoretical analysis and hypothesis" and "Section 5 mechanism test and heterogeneity analysis" lack necessary sentence components.

3. The research hypotheses presented should be consistent with the conclusions that the paper aims to verify; therefore, one hypothesis should be removed.

4. The author seems to have a non-rigorous attitude towards academic writing, as seen in Section 3, "Following prior studies (),".

5. Why does the data only extend to 2020? What is the reason for this?

6. The practice of adding 1 to the data before taking logarithms, which has been considered as distorting the data and regression results, should be reevaluated. Why not consider using raw data for regression?

7. Have macroeconomic variables not been considered among the control variables?

8. There are unrecognizable symbols in Equation (2); please verify.

9. The descriptive statistics show that more than half of the data on green technology innovation are zeros. Is this a true reflection of the situation?

10. Is there a basis for the calculation of Tone2?

11. The section on research hypotheses could benefit from additional theoretical discussion related to the mechanism section.

12. The author needs to discuss the rationale and significance behind analyzing heterogeneity.

13. Results from the inter-group variance tests should be included in the heterogeneity analysis.

Reviewer #3: Q1 The number of green patent applications is a typical ordered count data, which does not obey the positive distribution. I do not recommend that authors use +1 and logarithmic data processing methods. I prefer to use Poisson regression or panel negative binomial regression.

Q2 I strongly recommend that the sample data be updated to 2022. In the past two years, China's capital market has continued to improve, while the digital transformation of enterprises has become more mature. These reasons may have implications for green innovation.

Q3 The study did not consider causal inference. Note that PSM does not solve the endogeneity problem. Regression using a one-stage lag of the explained variable is also not a causal inference method. I recommend that authors adopt the tool variable and Heckman two-step method.

Q4 Baseline regression. I strongly recommend that the authors adequately compare the results of this study with existing literature. For the researchers, we are eager to know whether this manuscript is the first to discover the positive effect of positive tone in annual reports on green innovation, or whether it is a re-examination of the existing literature.

Q5 Study limitations and future prospects are suggested to be supplemented.

Q6 I suggest that the author add a research flow chart to the introduction.

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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

Reviewer #3: No

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PONE-D-24-12298R1Annual report text's positive tone and corporate green innovation: Evidence from ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gao,

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 Jul 08 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 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,

Jin Hu

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.

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: 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: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #2: (No Response)

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 #2: No

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: Please pay attention to the formatting of the formula. For instance, in formula (2) should not be on a separate line, and formula (3) should be centered.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the efforts made in revising the manuscript PONE-D-24-12298. However, I am dissatisfied with the outcome of the previous version's revisions as the feedback provided was not adequately addressed. The reasons for my dissatisfaction are as follows:

1. The inter-group variance tests for heterogeneity analysis are missing. Where have they been conducted?

2. The presence of micro-level data does not justify overlooking macro-level influences. Many micro-studies control for macroeconomic variables.

3. Equations (1), (2), and (3) are not displayed on the same line. The author needs to approach the manuscript revision with greater seriousness.

4. The author has not amended the following incomplete sentence which lacks a predicate: "Section 2 literature review, theoretical analysis, and hypothesis. Section 5 mechanism test and heterogeneity analysis." Is the author taking the review process lightly?？

5. I suggest the author thoroughly proofread the manuscript before resubmitting！

Reviewer #3: The author did a good job of solving my earlier doubts. On the whole, I am satisfied with the revised manuscript. Before accepting this manuscript, however, I recommend that the authors intensify the literature review. I highly recommend adding references from the last three years to highlight the timeliness of the manuscript. I have listed some of the literature, and authors can decide whether they need to cite them based on the relevance of the research.

Hu, J., Hu, M., & Zhang, H. (2023). Has the construction of ecological civilization promoted green technology innovation?. Environmental Technology & Innovation, 29, 102960.

Bai, D.B., Hu, J., Irfan, M., & Hu, M.J. (2023). Unleashing the impact of ecological civilization pilot policies on green technology innovation: Evidence from a novel SC-DID model. Energy Economics, 106813.

Han, Y., Li, Z., Feng, T., Qiu, S., Hu, J., Yadav, K. K., & Obaidullah, A. J. (2024). Unraveling the impact of digital transformation on green innovation through microdata and machine learning. Journal of Environmental Management, 354, 120271.

Shen, Y., Zhang, X. (2023). Intelligent manufacturing, green technological innovation and environmental pollution. Journal of Innovation & Knowledge 8(3), 100384.

Finally, I suggest replacing the table in Table 3 with a picture. Thermodynamic coefficient is recommended.

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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

Reviewer #3: 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.

PONE-D-24-12298R2Annual report text's positive tone and corporate green innovation: Evidence from ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gao,

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 Jul 19 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,

Jin Hu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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: No

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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 #2: (No Response)

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 #2: The author still hasn't solved my problem. The sentence in lines 78-83 in the manuscript lacks the necessary verb, and I've already mentioned the same problem twice！

Reviewer #3: I am satisfied with the revised manuscript. Before accepting it, I suggest that the author revise the following details.

Q1 Correlation coefficient matrix can be used in heat maps. Display the picture in one visual and color, rather than simply replacing it with an image format.

Q2 Cite Chinese references as little as possible;

Q3 I suggest that the authors supplement the statement that instrumental variables satisfy the principles of relevance and exclusivity. Why does it have such a strong exogeneity?

Q4 Whether the result reported in parentheses is a t statistic or a standard error needs to be explained in a footnote.

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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

Reviewer #3: 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.

Annual report text's positive tone and corporate green innovation: Evidence from China

PONE-D-24-12298R3

Dear Dr. Gao,

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,

Jin Hu

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: The authors solved my doubts very well. I have no additional comments to offer, but suggest that the author carefully check the language and syntax of the full text to avoid false semantics. Now it's acceptable. congratulations

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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