PONE-D-25-15972Stabilization of interdependent networks with two sub-networks of non-identical nodesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr.  Guo,

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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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure:

“Scientific and Technological Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (KJQN202301218, Cao Chen ; KJQN202301219, Changyuan Guo and KJQN202301215, Tong Wang), Foundation of Intelligent Ecotourism Subject Group of Chongqing Three Gorges University (zhlv-20221024,Cao Chen ). These funds support us in preparation of the manuscript.”

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Additional Editor Comments:

Please find mind and the referee report in the message below. My main concern is whether this paper has enough material to be considered an original contribution. Please elaborate on this carefully.

The central claim of the manuscript concerning stabilization of interdependent networks with non-identical nodes is essentially a straightforward extension of well-known control schemes. The "non-identical nodes" angle plays only a minor role: the proof just reuses standard Lipschitz-type assumptions and does not exploit any deeper structure. This makes the contribution marginal. The validation is also weak with toy numerical examples are shown. Both are deterministic toy models. There is no exploration of robustness, scalability, parameter sensitivity, or relevance to real interdependent networks. The paper claims importance for “transportation systems, power grids, communication networks,” but there is zero link to reality. This gap between the application claims and the toy theoretical exercise makes the paper feel disconnected and overstated.

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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: N/A

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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?

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

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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: Report manuscript number: PONE-D-25-15972

As a whole the manuscript “Stabilization of interdependent networks with two sub-networks of non-identical nodes” is interesting and could be published on PLOS ONE, but befre that a few points need t be addressed:

In the introduction the authors insist on the importance of having sub-networks with different nodes.

But when they present their model, see eq. 1 and 2 are very similar. In particular the authors are not clear whether or not the functions f and g are equal or just represent the same (in this case dynamics) in the equations. This is crucial to the paper. Please explain.

Other points:

Assumption 1: what is N? Are both sub-networks equal?

Please, explain the meaning of assumption 2 (eq 3) and assumption 3 (eq 4).

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Reviewer #1: No

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PONE-D-25-15972R1Stabilization of interdependent networks with two sub-networks of non-identical nodesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Guo,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, the referee still has suggestions to improve your manuscript. 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 Dec 19 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,

Tiago Pereira

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

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: (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 #1: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: I am satisfied with the authros responses. I think that now the manuscript can be considered for publicatio in PLOSONE, after correcting a few minor problems, which I point below.

Introduction:

4th paragraph: Explain an acronym (QUAD) the first time it appears in the manuscript.

Preliminaries and model formulations:

Check Capital letters!

Example 3.

Before equation (26) the aauthors mention: the UAV–UGV group is composed of 4

UAVs and 4 UGVs, and their dynamic models are given as follows:

But later they say: Dxi ∈ R4×4 and Dyi ∈ R6×6, which is clear in eqs. 29 and 30.

Correct the phrase before Eq. 26!

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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

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Stabilization of interdependent networks with two sub-networks of non-identical nodes

PONE-D-25-15972R2

Dear Dr. Guo,

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,

Tiago Pereira

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: