PONE-D-23-30849Investigations on Segmentation-Based Fractal Texture for Texture Classification in the Presence of Gaussian NoisePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sharma,

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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Narendra Khatri, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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" This research work is supported and funded by the Yayasan UTP grant: 015PBC-024 with title "Development of Corrosion Rate Predictive Dashboard for Corrosion Group in Refinery of the Future Using Customized AI ML Engine", under the Center for Research in Data Science(CerDaS), Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia."

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Additional Editor Comments:

A major revision has been recommended for the submission. Reviewers may suggest referring to certain articles; however, it is at the authors' discretion to decide whether to cite these references. Therefore, it is not mandatory to include the suggested articles in the revised manuscript.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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: 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: No

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: Why Investigation! word is associated with Title? when only classification is performed as objective. In material and methods, literature can be summarized, all mentioned equation and algorithms are existed! why it is re - written?

A generic MLP architecture was mentioned, instead model parameters should be presented.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.06048

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-99-0085-5_15

mentioned references achieved 99.78% accuracies.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is well written and the results are presented with clarity. SFTF although has computational complexity it is also sensitive to noise. clarity on addressing this issue may be included in result analysis.

though the accuracy is less by 2% in the presence of Gaussian noise what about the noise involved by the SFTF algorithm?

Reviewer #3: Report on

Investigations on Segmentation-Based Fractal Texture for Texture Classification in the Presence of Gaussian Noise

In this work, the authors in this paper assess two texture feature extraction methods based on SFTF and statistical moment-based texture features in the presence and absence of Gaussian noise. The SFTF and statistical moments-based handcrafted features are passed to a multilayer feed-forward neural network for classification. These models are evaluated on natural textures from Kylberg Texture Dataset 1.0. The results show the superiority of segmentation-based fractal analysis over other approaches. The average accuracy rates using the SFTF are 99% and 97% in the absence and presence of Gaussian noise, respectively. Although an interesting topic and an overall exciting work, the authors had to consider the following suggestions to improve the quality of their paper.

In the introduction part, it is important to mention previous research that involved texture classification but did not sufficiently address the problems caused by noise. As an example, cite the papers that concentrated on classical statistical moments or other learning techniques that work well on clean datasets but struggle with noisy inputs.

Regarding the contribution of the paper to be novel and more significant, the authors should mention why proposing this approach is significant. They should highlight the unique aspects of their approach compared to existing methods, for example. They mention 3 points as a contribution to their work, where just the first is considered as a contribution, and the other two points are the requirement to satisfy the first. It would be beneficial to clarify how these contributions are unique or how they advance this field.

All the symbols in the document should be written in an italic form. Please check section 2.2. The first paragraph in this section should be reformulated, it contains grammar mistakes.

In the second paragraph, the authors claim that “The higher value of the fractal dimension indicates a coarser texture.” Please justify this claim.

In Section 2.2, in the sentence “Due to this feature of SFTA”. What is SFTA?

The second paragraph should also be reformulated due to some mistakes, for example, 2ed.

The algorithm in the same page should be written in the standard form, many symbols should be defined, and other symbols should be written in one form. What is Th? What is [1……….|Th|-1]. Many words are written in a symbol form. Please, read the manuscript carefully and correct all the mistakes.

In Section 2.3, instead of rewriting the word that you need to define, replace it with “it”, for example:

“Smoothness: It calculates the relative smoothness of the gray intensities of a particular segment.

In Section 2.4, in my opinion, the first 3 paragraphs are fundamental text available in many documents. No need to mention them in these details.

The symbols in this section need to be adjusted. Also, step 10 needs more clarification.

Please enhance the figures with some detailed explanation and also the tables, please provide a detailed description of the structural details of the tables, especially Table 3, avoid the repetition of the Ref. and design the table in a more accurate form.

In the conclusion part, please highlight the novelty of your work, and how it improves the existing methods. What is the limitation of your work?

It would be interesting to explore and discuss practical applications beyond just theoretical discussion. This can make the research more impactful and relevant in these domains. It includes testing the proposed mappings in real-world scenarios.

The authors should read their paper many times to improve its quality and presentation.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Daniel Madan Raja S

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Evaluation report-PONE-D-23-30849_reviewer.DOCX

PONE-D-23-30849R1Investigations on Segmentation-Based Fractal Texture for Texture Classification in the Presence of Gaussian NoisePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sharma,

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

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 27 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,

Narendra Khatri, Ph.D.

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:

Minor Revision

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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 #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

********** 

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 #2: The answers to the queries are satisfactory. Still the loss due to Gaussian noise may be reduced. Kindly make sure the authorship of the article and it is not published elsewhere.

Reviewer #3: I see that the authors did not make all the required changes to improve their paper. The authors only answered that they had done what was required, but in fact, most of the changes were not made within the text. For example, if you look at Section 2.2, you will see that all the symbols are still in their incorrect forms and the ambiguous symbols have not been defined Equation 5 should be Equation (5) and all the equations must be written in standard form. Also, in the conclusions section, it is the same without any improvement. The researchers have highlighted Table 3. Why was it a shadow, and nothing has changed in the table? Where is the change that the researchers claimed they added in the introduction section, and why was it not highlighted? I ask the researchers to highlight the changes they made to the manuscript, and ask them to adhere to the required changes.

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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 #2: Yes: Dr Daniel Madan Raja S

Reviewer #3: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Investigations on Segmentation-Based Fractal Texture for Texture Classification in the Presence of Gaussian Noise

PONE-D-23-30849R2

Dear Dr. Sharma,

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,

Narendra Khatri, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept

The authors have revised the manuscript in accordance with the provided comments. Therefore, the manuscript is now suitable for acceptance without requiring further review.

Reviewers' comments: