PONE-D-24-06791JcvPCA and JsvCRP : a set of metrics to evaluate changes in joint coordination strategiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dubois,

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Roberto Di Marco, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." 

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4. We noted in your submission details that a portion of your manuscript may have been presented or published elsewhere. [Figure 1 and 2 have been submitted in a paper accepted to ICRA 2024, representing a preliminary aspect of this study. The figures are used to give a quick overview of the metrics used without going into details.] Please clarify whether this [conference proceeding or publication] was peer-reviewed and formally published. If this work was previously peer-reviewed and published, in the cover letter please provide the reason that this work does not constitute dual publication and should be included in the current 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: 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: No

Reviewer #2: 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

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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: A very interesting approach to converting positioning systems. Congratulations on your ideas, but I have doubts about the form of testing and comparing the results.

The article was written correctly and does not raise any objections, except for some incomprehensible issues that were included in the comments section.

Comments:

1. Please add numerical values, a description of the results and conclusions to the abstract, the abstract does not have the correct form - it needs to be reworded

2. Is examining such a small number of people objective? please justify your answer?

3. Can the presented data be compared numerically? please justify your answer

4. The results do not properly present the numerical values obtained during the study - the presentation of the areas under the graphs does not properly reflect the differences? Were average values used for comparison? why average if the sample is so small?

5. Why were these particular strategies chosen to execute the moves?

6. what does it mean that the curves are different from each other? Do we have any numerical values confirming that there are differences? when are the differences significant?

7. Could you point out the advantages and limitations of the methods used, and indicate when to choose each method?

This type of approach will increase the usefulness and citation of the manuscript

Reviewer #2: In this paper, the authors present two new measures to look at coordination between joints, JcvPCA and JsvCRP, which focus on the amplitude of joint contribution or the timing of joint rotations. While the methods presented are likely to be helpful, a limitation of the paper is that it is difficult to understand what a particular value of a score means, e.g. is 8272 a large value for JsvCRP? Also, it is not clear how to use this technique in situations with large numbers of degrees of freedom (as is the case in more naturalistic movements) where many decision need to be made (e.g. how many PCs to use)

Abstract - fix "relatinshipTs" (T instead of ')

page 2 - delete "the" in the Principal Component Analysis, and "the" continuous relative phase

page 3 - For example, [38] presented a metric - could you give some more details about what this metric is based on?

- [5] have introduced function PCA - they did not introduce it, it has been used in many previous works, e.g. the book of Ramsay and Silverman in 1997

"considers one joint at a time" - this is not necessarily the case, see the PCA examples in this book (and their 2009 book on Functional data analysis with R and MATLAB)

CRP - "if the result is constant, the joint phases evolve in unison" - it is not obvious (to me) why this is the case, it would be helpful to explain why this is the case (or maybe provide a graph as an example)

page 4- "there is at least as many joints" → "there are"

page 5 - "k and l repetitions" - are you referring to k and l samples taken simultaneously (i.e. as a function of time), or "k and l" repetitions of the task (and if so, which time point are you looking at)?

"removing the differences in the starting position" → this is a limitation of the technique - the movements may be highly influenced by differences in starting position, this should be discussed later

"with respect to the coordination strategy objectified from the intial dataset" - does this mean that is the process is repeated but switching A and B different results are obtained?

page 7 - "on the opposite" → should be something like "in contrast"

- can you explain what is the significance of the sign and magnitude of the JcvPCA?

page 8 - "careful consideration" - are their some guidelines for this? how can this be avoided? filtering the data first?

- "if the movement times are similar" - the reason for using DTW or similar is not just because the movement times may be dissimilar, but rather because the relative amount of time for parts of the movement may be different and so should be normalized first

- such as DTW - give a reference to DTW. It would be good to note here also the use of "registration" (as is used in the functonal data analysis book) to solve this problem

"are plotted together" - isn't this Figure 2C rather than 2A?

"at each time step" (Fig 2B) - isn't this Figure 2D?

page 9 - JsvCRP A,B - isn't this definition problematic, because if for some of the time CRP B is bigger than A, and some of the time A is bigger than B (as in Figure 2E), won't the + and - cancel out? Should it be the absolute difference instead?

- also why 100 here? shouldn't this be more general (I assume this is for 100 time points?)

- Can you explain what is the meaning of 3.06 as the JsvCRP - is this a big or small number?

page 10 - what is the end effector here? did the wrist / fingers play a role?

Figure 4 - should joint position be joint angle (if it is in radians?)

page 11 - it would be helpful to include again here the intermediate steps in calculating jcvPCA (in the figure)

page 12 - it would be helpful to understand whether 2411 and 8272 are considered small or large numbers

page 16 - "for example, highly skilled players" why is it better to use this measure rather than just look at the "raw" joint angles or positions?

ergonomics - what sort of changes in these two numbers would be considered "good" or "bad" ?

rehab - again, what sort of changes do we expect to see?

References

reference 1 - missing article number (this journal does not use page numbers)

reference 7 - missing article number (this journal does not use page numbers)

reference 8 - missing a journal

reference 13 - missing details

reference 20 - journal name appears twice

reference 23 - missing article number (this journal does not use page numbers)

reference 25 - missing article number (this journal does not use page numbers)

reference 28 - missing article number (this journal does not use page numbers)

reference 32 - missing details

reference 33 - missing article number (this journal does not use page numbers)

reference 44 - missing article number

reference 50 - missing article number

reference 55 - missing article number

reference 59 - missing article number

reference 60 - missing article number

Figure 3 - Hand's projected should be hand's projection

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-24-06791R1JcvPCA and JsvCRP : a set of metrics to evaluate changes in joint coordination strategiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dubois,

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 Apr 29 2025 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,

Roberto Di Marco, PhD

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 #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: Yes

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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: 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 #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: In this paper, the authors propose two indices based on PCA and CRP, respectively, to quantify joint coordination during movements. The aim of the study is interesting, and the paper does not present major technical or scientific issues. However, it is not well-structured, making it difficult to understand.

A scientific paper should include the following sections:

• Introduction

• Materials and Methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusions

This paper contains numerous sections and subsections that do not strictly follow this structure. Therefore, I recommend extensive editing to improve clarity.

Starting with the Introduction section, the introduction should:

• Provide background that puts the manuscript into context and allows readers outside the field to understand the purpose and significance of the study

• Define the problem addressed and explain its importance

• Include a brief review of key literature

• Highlight any relevant controversies or disagreements in the field

• Conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the work and a comment on whether that aim was achieved

I suggest that the authors remove all subsections related to the introduction to ensure the key points outlined above are clear. Sections 1.2.1 and 1.2.2 could be summarized using references to papers that explain PCA and CRP.

Additionally, I recommend removing Section 2 (Notations) from the main text and turning it into an appendix.

Materials and Methods

It appears that Section 3 marks the beginning of the Materials and Methods section. This section requires reformatting as it is too confusing and does not allow readers to replicate the procedure proposed by the authors. I suggest structuring it as follows:

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 Joint contribution variations based on PCA reprojection (JcvPCA) and explanation of the calculation

2.2 Spatio-temporal synchronization between joints based on CRP (JsvCRP) and explanation of the calculation

2.3 Application to Experimental Data

Results

The results section is completely missing. The authors should separate the results from the methods section and provide appropriate commentary.

Discussion

The discussion is very clear and well-written. However, I question why the section is titled Discussion and Conclusions when a separate Conclusions section follows later. Ensure consistency in this regard.

Bibliography

Pay attention to the formatting of the references. The first citation in the text appears as number 54, but it should be 1. I suggest updating the references to follow the journal's style.

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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: 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-24-06791R2JcvPCA and JsvCRP : a set of metrics to evaluate changes in joint coordination strategiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dubois,

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 Jun 22 2025 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,

Roberto Di Marco, PhD

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 #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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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 #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 #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 #3: I would like to thank the authors for their thorough review and for responding to each of my comments. In my opinion, the work has significantly improved and is worthy of being published. I have a curiosity, and I would like to point out a couple of typos.

• Just out of curiosity, I wanted to know what the rationale was for choosing the number of PCs as p+1 instead of, for example, the number of PCs that explain at least 95% of the variance?

• At the beginning of page 7, there are typos in the sentence 'Experimental protocol The participant was asked to reach each of the 3 targets 5 times using different coordination strategies.' There is a lack of punctuation, and some words are in bold.

• The numbering of the figures should follow the order of appearance in the text, but figure 4 is mentioned first, then figure 3, and then figure 2. I recommend rearranging them

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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 #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.

JcvPCA and JsvCRP : a set of metrics to evaluate changes in joint coordination strategies

PONE-D-24-06791R3

Dear Dr. Dubois,

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,

Roberto Di Marco, PhD

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 #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 #3: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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 #3: (No Response)

**********

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 #3: (No Response)

**********

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 #3: (No Response)

**********

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 #3: Yes: Emilia Scalona

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