PONE-D-24-24211ClusterRadar: an interactive web-tool for the multi-method exploration of spatial clusters over timePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mason,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Overall Impression:

The manuscript introduces a web tool, ClusterRadar, for exploring spatiotemporal clusters, addressing a genuine need. The authors have clearly articulated their design considerations and developed a user-friendly interface. However, several areas of the technical details, depth of analysis, and robustness could be improved.

i. Structure and Organization:

(Page 2, Line 42): The transition from the introduction to the background is abrupt. Include a brief introductory sentence to set up the background section, like "To understand the value of this tool, the following background information is necessary."

(Page 3-4, Lines 110-162): The "Related work" section is lengthy and could be more concise. Summarize the main points to more effectively highlight the authors' unique contribution and improve the flow of the document.

** (Page 6-8, Lines 233-326):** The "Methods" section is very long and may lose the reader's attention. Consider adding subheadings to better organize the content and improve readability.

(Page 9, Lines 358-368): The results section focuses excessively on the tool’s description and not enough on the derived insights. Reframe the section to focus on the analytical outputs and their potential applications.

(Page 14, Lines 516-555): The use case scenario could be more robust, fully demonstrating all aspects of the tools interactivity and visualization abilities. Expand this section to include more in-depth analysis of the datasets.

ii. Technical Content:

(Page 6, Line 240-242): The justification for using a binary weight matrix could be stronger. Discuss the alternatives and their relative advantages and disadvantages.

Throughout the document: The manuscript is long and does not emphasize the more technical aspects of the tool, such as implementation details, limitations, scalability, and computational efficiency. Highlight these points and provide supplementary documents if necessary.

Throughout the document: There is not much discussion of the technical limitations, and where the tool could potentially fail. Address the limitations of this tool, both technical and methodological, to establish its intended use cases.

iii. Scientific Merit:

(Page 14, Lines 516-555): The analysis presented in the "Usage scenario" section is brief and the conclusions drawn are somewhat basic. Explore more of the tool’s functionality and provide a more in-depth analysis of the cancer mortality dataset, with stronger conclusions.

The tool lacks robust validation. Include a section to validate the tool by comparing its performance with existing tools on standardized datasets.

The manuscript does not include a deep discussion of the caveats in the analysis, particularly when combining multiple methods. Discuss the theoretical and practical caveats of combining different clustering methods.

iv. Overall Suitability for Publication:

The manuscript is rather lengthy and contains information that may distract from the core contributions of the paper. Revise the document to emphasize the core contributions, and remove or summarize some of the background information and technical details.

The lack of robustness in the analysis, the lack of validation of the tool, and the lack of addressing methodological caveats could hamper its suitability for publication. Address these issues and create a supplementary document to include important but distracting technical details.

Summary of Key Points

The manuscript introduces a functional tool with great potential, but needs more emphasis on analytical rigor and robustness, with more efficient presentation. The above suggestions, including more concrete analyses, will help in the presentation of the core contributions.

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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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The Cluster Radar is great, however, I would like to about how will we handle the missing data ?

The US cancer data from CDC that you showed in the video is excellent that you can capture and found ONE county in New Jersey. However, I would like to know that if I cannot find the complete data set like that. How do we are going to deal with the missing data.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Uthumporn Panitanarak

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ClusterRadar: an interactive web-tool for the multi-method exploration of spatial clusters over time

PONE-D-24-24211R1

Dear Dr. Mason,

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.

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Kind regards,

Nazarudin Safian, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: