PONE-D-19-35078

Participatory modelling for poverty alleviation using fuzzy cognitive maps and OWA learning aggregation

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr. Papageorgiou,

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.

Though Reviewer 1 rejected PONE-D-19-35078, the reviewer provided many valuable and constructive comments. Considering reviewers’ useful comments and the interesting topic of the manuscript, I would like to give you a chance to revise your manuscript. The revised manuscript will undergo the next round of review by the same reviewers.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Mar 23 2020 11:59PM. When you are 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.

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• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Baogui Xin, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. We note that Figures 1, 7 and 8 in your submission contain copyrighted images. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

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3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

"Part of this work has received funding from the Ministry of Rural Development, Government

of India for providing financial support."

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows:

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4. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 2 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

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: 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: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reviewer #2: The article title is appropriate

The abstract accurately reflects the content.

The primary objective is genuine and argued persuasively

The purported significance of the article is explicitly stated.

The article adequately ties to the relevant literature.

The research study methods are sound and appropriate.

The writing is clear, concise and interesting however further proofreading should be done to correct some typographical mistakes. Also the author should check the Sentence in line numbers 253-255 (i.e. Each adjacency matrix consists of the normalised ……………………was called FCM (L) model) and correct the grammatical error therein.

All figures, tables, and images are necessary and appropriate.

The conclusions are accurate and supported by the content.

The article has made sufficient contribution to knowledge

Not all articles in reference are cited. Authos should delete references not cited in the manuscript.

Reviewer #3: The paper is well written but there are some points:

-Figures are not clear at all.

-It is recommended to compare this proposed model with new developed FCMs such Neuro-FCM (NFCM).

-It is expected to proof the performance of proposed model in mathematical manner not just giving an example.

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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.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Boluwaji Ade Akinnuwesi

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 to be viewed.]

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 us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-19-35078R1

Participatory modelling for poverty alleviation using fuzzy cognitive maps and OWA learning aggregation

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr. Papageorgiou,

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.

Since the first reviewer is not satisfied with your revision, I give you the last chance to revise your manuscript. To speed the review process, the revised manuscript will only be reviewed by the Academic Editor in the next round.

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by May 14 2020 11:59PM. When you are 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.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter.

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

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). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Baogui Xin, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: I Don't Know

**********

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

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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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 #1: Yes

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 #1: The manuscript Overall is well structured and well organised. It also contributes to the emerging FCM-based scenario domains. However, I have some minor and a few major concerns about some parts of the context.

I understand that paragraph four (A new extension of FCM, known as NFCM … experts and the calculation of model weights through training.) was later provided in the revision version in response to a comment by a reviewer. However, it appears entirely disengaged from the main topic while adding no value to the text. I would suggest moving this paragraph to the ‘Discussion’ section, which can be further expanded by analysing the similarities, differences, advantages and possible disadvantages of each technique. This modification will be in turn in line with the ‘Discussion’ context.

Section one (1. Introduction) is simply too long. The subsection 1.1 (Theory of change for decreased socio-economic poverty in Jammu and Kashmir) while being too long in the title, can come separately and independently as a case study section, perhaps after the methodology section. This subsection indeed comes between two main parts of the section, the first introducing the research, and the second providing the contributions of the paper along with the summarisation of the paper structure.

In section 2.2.1 (Expert-based FCM using an open-concept design) who are those 31 experts (their job title, position, their field, etc.)? How many workshops were arranged?

Line 360, I guess the correct number for the figure caption “Fig 3a. Collective-FCM model for Average-FCM (L)” is Fig. 5a.

Sub-titles are often too long. When possible, please shorten by keeping only the keywords.

In the text, ‘Figure’ sometimes come as abbreviated ‘Fig’, and sometimes come fully ‘Figure’. The label should be consistent through the whole text. The order of figures at the end is pretty sloppy. It starts with ‘Fig. 2’-‘Fig. 14’ and then ends with ‘Fig. 1’ and ‘Fig. 3’.

Section 2 is again too long and contains arguably too many subsections. Breaking down this section into two sections could improve the structure of the work.

Figures 7&8 can be moved to the supplementary information as they do not offer many contributions to the richness of the text body.

Discussion can come as an independent section, and it is better to come after ‘Policy implications of the scenario results’ to keep the coherency.

In section 2.8 (Structural analysis), the paper promises providing indices such as complexity, density, and the hierarchy index, but they were never brought.

Reviewer #2: PONE-D-19-35078R1

Participatory modelling for poverty alleviation using fuzzy cognitive maps and OWA learning aggregation

PLOS ONE

COMMENTS

1. Recommendation (Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, Reject) – Accept

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? (Answer options: Yes, No, Partly) - Yes

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? (Answer options: Yes, No, I don't know, N/A) - Yes

4. Does the manuscript adhere to the PLOS Data Policy? Additional details can be found at http://www.plosone.org/static/policies#sharing - Yes

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? (Answer options: Yes, No) - Yes

6. Review Comments to the Author - Below are my comments

The abstract is good. The primary objective is good.

Introduction: This is good and comprehensive. It aligns with the research objective. However, it is too long. I advise the author to reduce the length of the introduction. The key issues should be focused on.

The Literature reviewed is okay.

Methodology: This is good and well directed towards achieving the aim and objective of the research. However, I advise the author to reduce the length and hence focus on only the most important concepts adopted and the model developed and the implementation.

The figures and graphs are okay.

The conclusion is okay.

General Comments: The manuscript is too long. The author should focus only on key concepts relevant to the model development and implementation with view to reduce the length of the manuscript.

7. Would you like your identity revealed to the authors of this submission? (Answer options: Yes, No) - No

8. Do you have any potentially competing interests? If none, type "None." Our policy on competing interests can be found at http://www.plosone.org/static/policies.action#competing. - None

Reviewer #3: It is well written and all the comments are addressed. Now it is ready for publication..............

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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: Yes: Abdollah Amirkhani

[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 to be viewed.]

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 us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer comments-PONE-D-19-35078R1.pdf

Participatory modelling for poverty alleviation using fuzzy cognitive maps and OWA learning aggregation

PONE-D-19-35078R2

Dear Dr. Papageorgiou,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication.

Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, 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 enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and 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.

With kind regards,

Baogui Xin, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: