Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR ANALYSES OF PARASITIC BARNACLES (CRUSTACEA: CIRRIPEDIA: RHIZOCEPHALA) IN KOREA: PRELIMINARY DATA FOR THE TAXONOMY AND HOST RANGES OF KOREAN SPECIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This is an exemplary paper on how rhizocephalan taxonomy and fainistics should be done. The team, including the experienced second author have done a fine job. I have only a very few comments and corrections
1)   The English is clear and I have only corrected inb one or two places
2) The Literature is well treated and referred to. Nevertheless, I miss reference in appropriate places to two important articles:
Kobayashi M; Wong YH; Oguro-Okano M; Dreyer N; Høeg JT; Yoshida R; Okano K.. 2018. Identification, characterization, and larval biology of a rhizocephalan barnacle, Sacculina yatsui Boschma, 1936, from northwestern Japan (Cirripedia: Sacculinidae). J Crustacean Biol 38(3): 329–340. doi:10.1093/jcbiol/ruy020
Øksnebjerg, B. 2000. The Rhizocephala (Crustacea: Cirripedia) of the Mediterranean and Black Seas: taxonomy, biogeography, and ecology. Israel Journal of Zoology, 46: 1–102.
Especially Oksnebjerg seems to stand as the "above all" general treatment on nmodern rhizocephalan taxonomy, al be it only on European species.

Also: in the article below the authors will find the largest ever survey of a  rhizocephaælan on its host and in a classic system. It does not directly inform the present MS but puts the data in a perspective and supports what the authors state: That large samples from large areas and over time is needed to fully understand host specificity and prevalences....
Mouritsen K; Geyti S; Lützen J; Høeg JT; Glenner H. 2018. Population dynamics and development of the rhizocephalan, Sacculina carcini, parasitic on the shore crab Carcinus maenas. Diseases of Marine Organisms 131: 199-211. https://doi.org /10.3354/dao03290

The article structure is fine. I am very happy with the material presented in both morphological figures, distribution maps ands the several informative tables. This is how things should be done on these parasites

The article is indeed self-contaioned. This is MORE than a simple taxonomy paper, since its summarizes the fauna of an entire region and raises ideas and questions for future research.
Experimental design: Nothing to argue with
Validity of the findings: I agree with all conclusions, including the taxonomic steps. It ois very satisfactry that the authors use a phylogenetic approach to taxonomy and thus assist in resolving the issue of Sacculia and Parasacculina. I think Hoeg et al. (2019) predicted that many species of Sacculina might be in the future moved to Polyascidae-Parasacculina and now we see the fiurst such example. well done!
Additional comments: 1) I wonder why the authors did not take the full step and described the two new species of Parasacculina as such? I accepot their hesitancy and that it may be either "in the offing" or that they wait until they have further data (could be hostology as I know is exercized by author YOSHIDA). So please STATE why you do not formally describe those species

2) Multiple (colonial) externae. As the authors know, there are two types of multiple externae. Those that are internally interconnected and belong to one individual (Colonialism) and thus derive form a single infection. And those that represent individual infection events and thereofre separate individuals. Normally COLONIAL species are always with multiple externae.  BUT here they find that Polyascus greegarius can be single on the host here studied. This raises new perspectives about this biology. Could it be that colonialism is a plastic character that depends in part on host species? I thereofre encourage the authors to briefly mention this  even if they cannot offer solutions!

Specific comments

line 31: Remember rhizocephalans also occur on other crustacea, although this concerns only the "former akentrogonids"

Line 42: "In Europe" I do not understand. I guess this should be deleted or specified as "Far East"?
line 97: => externae
line 203: mantle? I think they mean "mantle aperture" or the mantle part that carries the "aperture". Please be clear on this

Line 257: => sinensis

Linbe 301-302: I am no sure here. Do you mean you are FIRST to describe rhizocephalans form these two crabs?

line 312: Here is a good place to also cite Kobayashi et al. (see above)

Lines 359-361: This may be a place to briefly discuss the issue of multiple externae and its intraspecific variation (or do it in detail before this)


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR ANALYSES OF PARASITIC BARNACLES (CRUSTACEA: CIRRIPEDIA: RHIZOCEPHALA) IN KOREA: PRELIMINARY DATA FOR THE TAXONOMY AND HOST RANGES OF KOREAN SPECIES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: This manuscript presented good and significant data for the study concerning this Sacculinidae parasite infection. The experiments were well-planned and the finding of this study is new. Interestingly, there are many sacculinidae infections from various species found in the sampling sites. By using proper taxonomical analysis based on morphology and combining with three molecular markers, the coding region from the nuclear and mitochondrial genome, and the non-coding region from the mitochondrial genome to construct the phylogenetic tree is one of the best ways to group the organism properly to the right taxa. The selected genes were from uniparental lineage, giving more genetic information for comparison.
Experimental design: The experiment was properly designed with complete morphological and molecular analysis to characterize the taxa of Sacculinidae. These approaches support the main objectives of the study very well. However, using MEGA 10 software to construct the maximum-likelihood phylogenetic tree is unpopular but it is still acceptable. I have no problem with this matter. However, most of the researchers prefer to use RaxML software to construct the phylogenetic tree.
Validity of the findings: The findings are reliable and novel based on the approaches used to characterize the sacculinidae species and group them into the right taxa. These promising results might be useful in future studies of Sacculinidae parasites. The conclusions are well described in this manuscript.
Additional comments: The manuscript is well written and presented. This research is really comprehensive and novel. However, there are some minor grammatical mistakes in the manuscript. Please correct all the grammatical mistakes in the manuscript. The author should also improve the map of the sampling sites by providing the name of the sea around South Korea.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR ANALYSES OF PARASITIC BARNACLES (CRUSTACEA: CIRRIPEDIA: RHIZOCEPHALA) IN KOREA: PRELIMINARY DATA FOR THE TAXONOMY AND HOST RANGES OF KOREAN SPECIES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: see below
Experimental design: see below
Validity of the findings: see below
Additional comments: I think my previous comments were fully addressed. There are two minor points:

1) Polyascus - it is identified as P. gregarious in Korea. There is another species Polyascus plana commonly in Japan including Okinawa and Taiwan. From the phylogenetic tree in this MS, although P. plana and P. gregarious are separated in two clades, but the two clades are very close each other. I wonder it may be population level differences in P. plana. Any comments in this aspect? I think the author should add in one paragraph to address this, if it is P. gregarious, there should be morphological differences from P. plana which can add into the remarks.

2) Jung et al. in the reference list - it should be Zoological Studies 58: 33 - the article number is missing in the MS.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR ANALYSES OF PARASITIC BARNACLES (CRUSTACEA: CIRRIPEDIA: RHIZOCEPHALA) IN KOREA: PRELIMINARY DATA FOR THE TAXONOMY AND HOST RANGES OF KOREAN SPECIES
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: see below
Experimental design: see below
Validity of the findings: see below
Additional comments: The comments were addressed and it can be accepted for publication.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLAR RADIATION AT XIAOTANG, IN THE NORTHERN MARGINAL ZONE OF THE TAKLIMAKAN DESERT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The characteristics of solar radiation and the influence of sand and dust on solar radiation in the northern margin of Taklimakan Desert were analyzed using radiation observation data in 2018. The results showed that the annual total, direct, and scattered radiation at Xiaotang were 5781.8, 2337.9, and 3323.8 MJ·m−2, respectively. The aerosol optical depth corresponded well with the scattered radiation. Under the same solar height angle, total radiation was higher during clear days but lower on sandstorm days. The average atmospheric transmittance was 0.67 on a clear day, and 0.46 on sand-and-dust days. When the atmospheric transmittance was 0.5, the increase in scattering radiation by aerosol in the air began to decrease. Probability analysis of radiation indicated the following probabilities of total radiation <500 W·m−2 occurring on clear, floating-dust, blowing-sand, and sandstorm days: 67.1%, 76.3%, 76.1%, and 91.8%, respectively. Dust had the greatest influence on direct radiation; the probabilities of direct radiation <200 W·m−2 occurring on clear, floating-dust, blowing-sand, and sandstorm days were 44.5%, 93.5%, 91.3%, and 100%, respectively, whereas those of scattered radiation <600W·m−2 were 100%, 99.1%, 98.1%, and 100%, respectively.

Based on the analysis of observational data, this study is useful to understand solar radiation transfer at the Taklimakan Desert and can be accepted after revision. The comments and suggestions are as follows:

Line 141, “The clock of the collector adopts the local real solar time, which differs from Beijing time by 2 h 22 min 48 s”, it is better to show the difference specifically, i.e., earlier or later.

Line 150, “Due to the high sensitivity of the instrument, it outputs in the form of negative numbers”, it is not clear, please explain the reasons for the negative numbers.

Line 164, “Rb’is the direct radiation on the vertical plane” should be corrected. It is really on the vertical plane?

Lines 170-172, “The total solar astronomical radiation incident on the top of the atmosphere is absorbed and scattered by atmospheric molecules and aerosols, and the radiation received by the ground is the total radiation” should be rewritten.

Lines, 243, 250, 261, What is meaning for “Summer > spring > autumn > winter” ?

Line 620, “The value of r is mainly concentrated between 3 and 6 MJ·m−2 and lasts 80 days”, what is r?

Lines 301, 470, “When the atmospheric transmittance is 0.5, the ratio of scattered radiation to astronomical radiation (Rd/Qd) begins to decrease”, does it mean When the atmospheric transmittance is larger than 0.5? please explain this sentence more clearly.

Line 304, “Figure 8 shows that the distributions of hourly total radiation, direct radiation, and scattered radiation are symmetric during midday on clear days”, should be rewritten.

Line 386, “AOD is negatively correlated with DSSRSBD”, please explain DSSRSBD.

Line 458, please remove “the atmospheric transmittance increased”.

Lines 471-473, “Sand and dust can enhance the scattering radiation in a certain range; if the sand and dust content in the air is too high, the scattering radiation will be weakened”, it is better to give the specific conditions for the sand and dust content in the air is too high.

“Figure 9 Statistics of total radiation, direct radiation, and scattered radiation on clear, floating-dust, blowing-sand, and sandstorm da ys at Xiaotang”, please explain da, and ys.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLAR RADIATION AT XIAOTANG, IN THE NORTHERN MARGINAL ZONE OF THE TAKLIMAKAN DESERT
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The manuscript reported radiation data for 2018 observed around the north margin of the Taklimakan desert, and discussed the diurnal and annual variation, the relations with solar height angle, aerosol load, and the atmospheric transmittance and the transparency coefficient. However, the observed data were analyzed at a superficial level, from which it is hard to gain new scientific knowledge beyond the common sense or insight about the atmospheric characteristics of that area.

Besides, there are many errors in the statements unacceptable for publication:

Line 145: the authors said, "... the radiometer is wiped before sunrise. However, the radiometer is not wiped during sand and dust weather to capture the impact of sand and dust on radiation." That will lead to lower values of the radiation during the sand and dust days.

Line 183-187: What is the definition of the "air (or atmospheric) quality"? Should it be "air mass"? Why is It 2 when the solar altitude angle is 90 degree? The bibliography Hu et al. (2008) is missing, Hu et al. (2015) seems not accessible for english readers. If there is not any source in English, the author should have talked more about equation (5).

Line 269: the authors said "When the solar height angle is less than 10°, the total radiation amounts in clear, floating-dust, blowing-sand, and sandstorm days are similar to the fitting curve of the solar height angle." The similarity can not be seen in the figure. If the similarity means the smaller absolute bias, that is meaningless.

Line 276: the authors said, "As the solar height angle increases, the total radiation becomes more affected by the weather." Similarly to the last comment, that can not be seen in the figure.
Line 282: The title should be about the atmospheric transmittance.

Line 290: The "sand and dust" day seems not defined yet.

Line 320: the authors said, "In summer (Fig. 8(B)), the daily total value of total radiation decreases by 13.2%, 22.7%, and 51.5% compared with those on clear, floating-dust, blowing-sand, and sandstorm days in spring, respectively." It seem one value is missing here, and I can not see the values in summer are smaller (if not bigger) that those in spring.

Line 326-328: It can be seen from table 2, "36 days" should be "37 days". "eight sandstorms" should be "nine sandstorms".

Line 320: The source of the the total sediment transport value should be provided.

Line 381: What is the source of AOD data?

Line 387: what is DSSR_SBD ?

In section discussion, it is not proper to generally state the annual total radiation at Xiaotang is higher or lower than those at other sites, because there is only one year of observation at Xiaotang, and the data at the sites are for different periods (years), which can be seen from the publication dates.

Line 197: “A total cloudiness of >20% and an inverted-U-shaped daily change in total radiation were taken to indicate a clear day”, where > should be <.

Line 200-203: The "blowing sand" were defined twice.

Some statements are hard to understand, maybe due to language error, like:

Line 96: "the attenuation of dust aerosols and solar radiation is as high as 40% in the summer."

Line 184: "To overcome the Forbes effect, that is, the atmospheric quality interfering with changes in solar spectral composition (Hu et al., 2015)."

Line 466: The weakening of total radiation dust aerosol was mainly concentrated in high-value areas.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CHARACTERISTICS OF SOLAR RADIATION AT XIAOTANG, IN THE NORTHERN MARGINAL ZONE OF THE TAKLIMAKAN DESERT
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The authors revised the manuscript, minor revisions are required.

L144, please add the model of A CR3000 micrologger (Campbell, United States).

L313, “value of direct radiation decreases sharply in at the Xiaotang Station” should be corrected.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EXPLORING WOMEN’S OXYTOCIN RESPONSES TO INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PET CATS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Besides from some minor typo’s the paper is easy to read and not overly wordy. Relevant literature regarding the role of OT in evolution of mammal bonding, in human-infant bonding, human-dog bonding and different ways to measure OT is described.

In addition, categories of human-cat interactions and cat behavior are connected with knowledge from human-infant and human-dog interactions.

It is not clear to me if participants were instructed how to behave with their cat. If no instructions were given, the authors might add this to the method section.

I would like to see a table/graph to provide insight in the presence of the behaviors (% yes/no) and means (averages) of the other behaviours.
Experimental design: As OT is connected to social bonding, I was wondering why the following aspects were not considered as covariates: number of cats, self-reported bond with the cat and havein children (or not).
Validity of the findings: The three hypotheses are clearly answered and are (to the best of my knowledge) discussed in relation to what is known in this field. Limitations of the study are present.
Additional comments: Clear aim, hypotheses and design. Clearly written and relevant paper.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EXPLORING WOMEN’S OXYTOCIN RESPONSES TO INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PET CATS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Introduction

Line 79: I think "Though less clear" should be deleted. Does this expression imply that the results in Bell, Erickson, & Carter (2014) were not robust?

Paragraphs beginning with Line 83: You might consider citing Topál et al. (1998, Attachment Behavior in Dogs (Canis familiaris): A New Application of Ainsworth's (1969) Strange Situation Test). They demonstrated that dogs show patterns of attachment behavior toward the owner similar to mother-infant interaction in SST.

Lines 101-103: Consider citing Edwards et al. (2007, Experimental evaluation of attachment behaviors in owned cats) and Nagasawa et al. (2020, Effects of the characteristic temperament of cats on the emotions and hemodynamic responses of humans)

Line 118: I think the reason for limiting the experimental subjects to reproductive aged women is a little weak. Certainly, you have cited many papers about mother-infant bonding, but you also mentioned that “underlying neurological processes exist across both sexes and impact both male and female social cognition” in lines 70-71.

Lines:122-128: I think the three hypotheses are a bit abrupt. It would be better to explain in more detail whether maternal and affection-seeking behaviors are also observed in human and pet (dog) studies, although you mentioned that OT is implicated as promoting human-dog social interactions in line 88.
Experimental design: Materials & Methods

The procedure need a bit more explanation.
- In the control condition, did the participants read the book in a separate room so that cats or other pets could not come in?
- For the participants who have more than one cat, did you instruct them which cats they would interact with (e.g., the one kept the longest) ?
- When the participants record their interaction with cats, did they hold the camera (cell phone) by hand? Or did they put it on a tripod or something?

Measures
Line: 223: Participants were asked if they worked the day of interaction. It seems to contradict with the following statement: "Participants were instructed that on the days they were to participate they were to have been working or performing a work-related task away from their residence for a minimum of 4-hours" (lines 184-186).

Lines 231-232: Their stress score was higher on the day of cat interaction than the day of book interaction, is it right?

Lines 247-249: It would be better to have information about minute sampling in the manuscript as well as in the caption of Table 2.

Lines 268-269: If the presence of other cats could influence the participants' behavior, why didn’t you control it? Was it impossible to conduct in a room where no other cats could enter?

Statistical Analyses
Line 291: I apologize, but I am unsure why you conducted both ANOVA and ANCOVA. Could you please clarify?

Lines 322-324: A table or figure would be needed.

Line 328: If you test whether the mean change from pre to post differed in the two groups, why a t-test was not used? Or, did you conduct 2x2 design ANOVA? Did you mean there were neither main effect of condition (cat / book), order (pre / post) nor interaction of them?
Validity of the findings: Results

Lines 347-349: In Table 3, " Conversation with cat, paused for response time " seems to be negatively correlated with OT change, is that correct?

Discussion
Lines 369-370: Do you mean that even if not interacting with the animal, specific behaviors in themselves (for example, petting something) might correlate with OT responses?

Lines 378-381: Do you mean that an increase in women’s OT would not be expected by interacting with cats in another culture where cats are simply regarded as vermin removers?

Lines 384-385: There are a few studies about human-cat interactions that did not deal with OT (for example, Edwards et al. (2007) and Nagasawa et al.(2020) mentioned above), so it is better to clarify the differences between those studies..

Lines 408-410: consider citing Turner (1991, The ethology of the human-cat relationship), which suggested that cat-human interactions last longer when initiated by the cat.

Paragraphs beginning with Line 421: How about mentioning pet directed speech (PDS)?

Lines 438-439: “comparable studies with dogs and children have found effects that were not found in this study.” does this indicate that there was no difference in the change in OT between the cat and control conditions in the present study?
Additional comments: While the COVID-19 makes it difficult to conduct face-to-face experiments, it is nice that the participants were instructed how to conduct the experiment so that they could do it alone. As mentioned in the limitation section, this method does not allow you to directly observe the participants interactions, but it is important to continue research and explore new research methods even in such a difficult time.
It is interesting that women's OT changes were correlated with several behaviors during the human-cat interactions (e.g., positively with petting the cat and cat approach initiation, negatively with cat aggression behavior). However, it does not seem to be much discussion of the reasons why there was no difference in OT change between the control and cat conditions.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EXPLORING WOMEN’S OXYTOCIN RESPONSES TO INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PET CATS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The methods are reported in good detail. The results are mostly presented clearly, but with an odd framing on the methods. The introduction and discussion are not clearly written, should cite more extensively, and the logical flow is often missing or implicit. I give specific recommendations in the general comments. I also suggest reading sections aloud to help find awkward sentences and shifts in topic.
Experimental design: The methods are well reported; however, I have two methodological concerns.

First, there is no analytical validation (parallelism and spike recovery) reported for samples lyophilized with a 6x concentration. Although another paper is cited for the method, I do not see a validation in that paper either. The kits themselves are validated on unaltered (unconcentrated, not lyophilized samples), however a concentration of 6x could easily concentrate other molecules that might interfere with the immunoassay. Thus, a parallelism should be conducted from above 6x (e.g. 8x) to ensure that the samples dilute in parallel with the standard curve. In addition, spike recovery should be assessed at the 6x concentration. (For more on these methods, see Andreasson et al. 2015.

Second, by taking the differences of already logged concentrations, you are essentially analysing the change ratio, rather than the absolute change in hormone levels. This is important to be clear about in presenting the results and this choice should be justified.

Andreasson, Ulf, Armand Perret-Liaudet, Linda J.C. van Waalwijk van Doorn, Kaj Blennow, Davide Chiasserini, Sebastiaan Engelborghs, Tormod Fladby, et al. “A Practical Guide to Immunoassay Method Validation.” Frontiers in Neurology 6, no. Aug (2015): 1–8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2015.00179.
Validity of the findings: The underlying data is provided, and the conclusions drawn generally seem valid. However, I am concerned regarding the way the correlations with OT change are presented (i.e. not as ratios), and also the mention of COVID-19 in the discussion that is not grounded in any reported data collection.
Additional comments: Introduction:
54-55: the use of the word “changes” makes sense to me as compared to the pre-cat interaction levels, but not relative to the control condition.
60: I am confused by “has establish there are components to behavior on”. Maybe “has identified distinct human and cat behaviors that influence oxytocin release in humans”?
68: I wouldn’t really consider birth (and particularly the physical aspect of contractions facilitated by OT) to be a social behavior. It seems more like a reproductive behavior.
83-84: I agree that this is a more common behavior in humans than other animals, but I’m uncomfortable with the use of unique here. There are certainly plenty of cases, both in the wild and in captivity, of strong bonds between members of different species.
85-86: “Domestic dogs possess social cognitive functions analogous to children”, this is either overclaiming or is open to misinterpretation as such. While dog social cognition does bear some resemblance to human children’s cognition (and it would be worth citing some examples), there are also clearly lots of limitations, and the analogies seem to apply in some respects (or on some tasks) more than others. Please clarify and be more specific.
88-90: What behaviors? Please expand on this. And what do you mean by “reflected biologically” other than oxytocin levels? Perhaps this could be simplified by just saying “Oxytocin has been implicated in X, Y, Z.”
92-99: this paragraph needs more structure. Guide the reader through your logic.
107: presumably you thought that an unfamiliar cat was meaningfully different from interacting with one’s own cat. Can you be more explicit about that here?
109-115: can you discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach? Just a few sentences.
The introduction generally focuses on the context of maternal behavior. Obviously this is the most relevant to the framing of the study, but it would also be worth mentioning the role of oxytocin in other social relationships, especially pair-bonding.

Methods:
148: why was the age of 8 years old chosen as the threshold?
181: missing a word (order? sequence?)
208: interaction, not intervention?
213: were videos set up to capture the interaction (e.g. on a tripod) or held continuously with focus on the cat? How much were the cats in frame? Assuming not the entire time, how was this treated in the behavioral coding and analysis?
267-269: I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying here. Are you trying to get at competition/jealousy between cats? Or split attention of the participant?
273: please provide the catalog number. This is especially important for immunoassays that are dependent on an antibody, which sometimes changes. Please also report the cross-reactivities of this kit with other analytes.
Table 2: are human-initiated and cat-initiated mutually exclusive? What rules do you use to determine? (E.g. what if the human reaches out their hand and the cat pushes their head into it?) “within a minute of each minute” I don’t understand (becomes clear later in caption, but this is confusing). Maybe binomial per minute?
288-289: It is more accurate to say “to check normality”, as a failure of Shapiro-Wilk could be for skew or for other reasons (and the test statistic does not tell you about skew).
295-296: subtracting logs is the same as taking the log of division, not subtraction. Thus, you area analysing a change ratio. This is important for the interpretation.

Results:
While it can be helpful to remind readers what you did (and why) as the beginning of the results, statements about the literature should be in the introduction or discussion, not the results. Furthermore, most of the results are introduced based on the test that produced them. I suggest reframing these sections to focus on the data/result/question, rather than the method. The results would benefit from a figure showing individual points and lines between pre and post. Is the change not large enough to rise to significance, is it there in most but not all individuals, or is it a pretty even mix or rising and falling? A figure that shows this would be helpful for the reader to interpret the negative result.
319: restate this to be about the subjects, not about the data.
324: I think “all” refers to across conditions and timepoints, but this is not entirely clear.
342-343: I am confused by this last sentence. Are you extrapolating these results to humans? Why?
348-349: two ands
350: to, not toe?
351: “suggest” or “indicate” not “mean”
Table 3: No indicators of correlation significance are actually given in the table. Instead of flagging certain variables as Y/N sampling indicating a positive correlation, I would suggest the reference level be swapped, which will lead to a more intuitive interpretation of the results.
364-366: explain what you mean by “inconsistent”. Unpack this. While the findings are different, these are pet cats, so that’s not surprising. What might it mean?

368-370: I agree that looking at specific behaviors is very important for behavioral endocrinology research! However, differential associations like this have been seen in other species as well, so please discuss and cite. For example:
Lürzel, Stephanie, Laura Bückendorf, Susanne Waiblinger, and Jean Loup Rault. “Salivary Oxytocin in Pigs, Cattle, and Goats during Positive Human-Animal Interactions.” Psychoneuroendocrinology 115, no. February (2020): 104636. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2020.104636.
MacLean, Evan L., Laurence R. Gesquiere, Nancy R. Gee, Kerinne Levy, W. Lance Martin, and C. Sue Carter. “Effects of Affiliative Human-Animal Interaction on Dog Salivary and Plasma Oxytocin and Vasopressin.” Frontiers in Psychology 8, no. SEP (2017): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01606.
Nagasawa, Miho, Shouhei Mitsui, Shiori En, Nobuyo Ohtani, Mitsuaki Ohta, Yasuo Sakuma, Tatsushi Onaka, Kazutaka Mogi, and Takefumi Kikusui. “Oxytocin-Gaze Positive Loop and the Coevolution of Human-Dog Bonds.” Science 348, no. 6232 (April 17, 2015): 333–36. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1261022.

373-377: You have not reported anything about COVID-19 response/restrictions.
390-393: Unpack this as an alternative explanation to social bonding.
425-427: unpack this and be more specific.
438-439: please cite the papers you are referring to here.
443-444: I’m not sure why the behavioral coding itself is a limitation, unless you are referring to something about how this was done (e.g. the videos).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EXPLORING WOMEN’S OXYTOCIN RESPONSES TO INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PET CATS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
Additional comments: The paper is clearly improved as a consequence of the authors' response to the extensive suggestions of  the reviewers. The questions and suggestions I previously had, were satisfactorily addressed by the authors. This paper is very interesting and an important addition to increasing knowlegde about the human-cat relationship.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EXPLORING WOMEN’S OXYTOCIN RESPONSES TO INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PET CATS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Thank you for your thoughtful response to all my comments.
The manuscript has been well revised and I do not see any major problems.

I think the manuscript has become quite long, as well as the author feels. If you are concerned about it, the section I pointed out about future research (PDS) could be made a bit more compact.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: You have answered my question regarding the limiting of the experimental subjects to reproductive aged women in the Discussion (lines 436-455). I think it might be better to bring this part to the Introduction or Materials & Methods (Participant Screening section).


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: EXPLORING WOMEN’S OXYTOCIN RESPONSES TO INTERACTIONS WITH THEIR PET CATS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: Many of the textual revisions have improved the clarity of the manuscript. The increased level of detail in the methods is particularly important and helpful. And I would like to reiterate that I do believe this study addresses an important question by exploring the human-cat interaction in a similar way as human-dog interactions have previously been studied.
Experimental design: No comment/see below.
Validity of the findings: Thank you for including figure 1. I think this helps make sense of the data. Please restrict the y-axis to the range of the data so that differences can be seen more clearly.

However, my two most major concerns were not addressed effectively.

1) Lyophilization and validation:

Although the authors are correct that lyophilization of saliva samples is frequently used in the literature, few of the papers they cite perform any validation themselves. Unfortunately, these sorts of methodological details are sometimes overlooked, but they are important, especially given the controversy surrounding measurement of oxytocin.

The current study concentrates samples by 6x, whereas most previous studies only concentrate by 2-4x. Only two of the cited studies use a 6x concentration, and neither of those papers include any analytical validation. I believe the only cited study that performs spike recovery is Carter et al. 2007, which not only used a different concentration, it also used a different kit (Assay Designs) with a different antibody (note also that the Enzo kit began using a new antibody in 2013, as cited in Daughters et al. 2015).

Although lyophilization is commonly used to eliminate matrix interference, it can also magnify matrix interference by concentrating molecules other than the analyte. It is common that there is a “sweet spot” in which assays perform reliably, and it is quite possible that a 6x concentration might be outside of this sweet spot. This is why it is always important to report parallelism (bracketing the concentration of study samples) and spike recovery (at the concentration used for study samples).

Ideally, the exact method—as performed in this lab—should be validated, either here or in another paper (see MacLean et al. 2019 for more on why this is particularly important for oxytocin studies). If that is not possible, it is important to note any deviations in your protocol from previously validated methods and explicitly state that these components of your method have not been validated.

MacLean, Evan L., Steven Ray Wilson, W. Lance Martin, John M. Davis, Hossein P. Nazarloo, and C. Sue Carter. “Challenges for Measuring Oxytocin: The Blind Men and the Elephant?” Psychoneuroendocrinology 107, no. May (2019): 225–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.05.018.

2) Difference of logs:
I do not object to the use of a log transform; this is common practice for hormone data, especially when there is right skew (although I will also point out that what matters in determining the necessity of a transformation is the residuals, not the raw distributions). The issue is with taking the difference of already logged concentrations.

log(a) – log(b) = log(a/b), therefore a difference between logged values tells you about the ratio of the two concentrations, not their absolute difference.

Note, that in the two papers cited, MacLean et al. 2017 and Marshall-Pescini et al. 2019, they are primarily modeling the log concentrations with time point as a fixed effect. In cases where they are analysing the association with behavior, however, MacLean et al. 2017 do use the log-transformed percent change, which could be appropriate here as well.

Many people use the absolute or ratio change as the outcome variable in this sort of study. But it is crucial to be clear as to what you are doing. By using a difference of logged values, you are looking at ratio change, and because you are using log10, this can be interpreted as how many orders of magnitude the change between pre- and post- samples is.

Please note also, that the usage of a log-transformation in general should be justified based on it improving the normality of residuals, not simply based on precedent.

Additionally, in looking more closely at the provided data again, I am confused by the raw and adjusted concentrations. The adjusted concentrations appear to multiply the raw values by 6. However, as the samples were concentrated (not diluted) by 6x before assay, I believe the adjusted values should divide the raw concentrations by 6 instead, unless I am misunderstanding the columns. This would affect the reported results as well.
Additional comments: 1.	Line 83: suggest “intraspecific” before “social behaviors”
2.	Line 90: “result from” or “are a result of”?
3.	Lines 97-101: from the text alone, this sounds like a single study, but from the citations it looks like two. Please clarify.
4.	Line 103: please specify that increased urinary OT was associated with higher levels of mutual gaze.
5.	Lines 105-107: it’s great to cite these studies, but I think even without those studies this would be interesting, mostly because cats have also been (semi-)domesticated for thousands of years and are one of the most common household pets. If you agree, I’d suggest saying as much, as I think it provides stronger motivation.
6.	Lines 124-132: I disagree that the only solution here is more standardization (although that is likely important on the hormone measurement side of things). Different approaches (e.g. intranasal administration vs. measuring endogenous levels) have different rationales and different pros and cons. This section could be strengthened by considering those, particularly given the abundance of intranasal oxytocin studies and the importance of endogenous oxytocin studies such as this one.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: TREATMENT WITH SODIUM (S)-2-HYDROXYGLUTARATE PREVENTS LIVER INJURY IN AN ISCHEMIA-REPERFUSION MODEL IN FEMALE WISTAR RATS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript has a good flow and is easy to understand. However, there are places where the sentence construction can be improved. Examples include line #s 112, 161, 165, 168, 322, 401 etc.

The authors refer to S-2-HG as an oncometabolite. It is in fact R-2-HG (D isomer) that is the oncometabolite and S-2-HG (L isomer) is actually a hypoxic metabolite. It is requested that authors rectify the discussion surrounding this in the introduction section
Experimental design: The authors describe the experimental protocols and procedure is great detail and provide the raw data sets for their results, which is great to see. I have the below questions/concers about the experimental design

1) Why did the authors use only female rats and not males? The authors do not provide any justification for this choice. Liver injury or liver transplant is not a sex specific pathology and I am not aware of any statistics that suggest that the incidence/risk factor is higher in females. As such, both sexes should be evaluated in the study.

2) The authors use S-2-HG as a inhibitor of EGLN family prolyl hydroxylase to sustain levels of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). However, the authors do not evaluate prolyl hydroxylation levels in presence and absence of S-2-HG to ensure that there is target engagement by inhibitor. Similarly, there has been no evaluation of the HIF levels in control, IR and treatment+IR groups. This is a major shortcoming of the study.

3) The authors cite the previous use of S-2-HG for its beneficial effects in nephroprotection from IR injury. This study is from the same group as the authors of the current study. However, a sodium salt of S-2-HG is very hydrophilic and is unlikely to cross the lipophilic cell membranes to exert its inhibitory effect on prolyl hydroxylases. It is therefore possible that S-2-HG is exerting the limited hepatoprotective effects through some other mechanism, which the authors need to investigate.
To claim that S-2-Hg/prolyl hydroxylase/HIF axis has been enganged, the authors need to provide enzyme activity and/or western blot data showing S-2-HG inhibits the intended target.
Also it is suggested that authors synthesize and use a dimethyl ester form of S-2-HG which is likely to much much more membrane permeable than the disodium salt.

4) Authors use only liver injury and inflammation biomarkers to assess the effect of S-2-HG in their model of IR injury. No infarction or functional recovery data after S-2-HG treatment has been provided to show beneficial effect. Authors are requested to generate this data.
Validity of the findings: The statistical analysis on some data needs to be reevaluated. For example in Figure 1c, the difference in AST levels between IR and HGIR groups is unlikely to be significant.

The figure legends need to provide information regarding the reported error bars i.e. they represent standard deviation and not standard error.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: TREATMENT WITH SODIUM (S)-2-HYDROXYGLUTARATE PREVENTS LIVER INJURY IN AN ISCHEMIA-REPERFUSION MODEL IN FEMALE WISTAR RATS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Cienfuegos-Pecina et al present an original research article titled “Treatment with sodium (S)-2-hydroxyglutarate prevents liver injury in an ischemia-reperfusion model in wistar rats.” Previous studies have shown that preconditioning and the potential activation of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF) protect against ischemia-reperfusion injury. The authors proposed that inhibition of EGLN by sodium (S)-2-hydroxyglutarate, resulting in HIF activation attenuates ischemia-reperfusion injury. Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury occurs due to anoxic liver injury after major resections and transplantations or in response to systemic hypoxia. The manuscript is clearly written with detailed statistical analysis, sample size calculations and easy to follow graphical presentations.
Experimental design: 1. In the introduction the authors state that the rationale for using (S)-2HG is the inhibitory effect on EGLN, which potentially activates HIF and attenuates ischemia-reperfusion injury. The authors do not provide any data on EGLN1-3 activity or HIF1/2. Without these additional measurements it is not possible to assess the validity of the hypothesis. (S)-2HG can be converted to alpha-ketoglutarate and potentially used as a carbon fuel in the Krebs cycle independent of HIF regulation. The authors need to expand their experimental model to account for these factors.

2. Reperfusion injury is a dynamic process that involves immune cell activation and cytokine release, as well as reactive oxygen species. The authors focus on clinically relevant liver function tests that can be assessed in the blood (e.g., ALT, AST, cytokine release). However, other processes that have been implicated in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury are not included. For example, anaerobic metabolism, mitochondrial function, intracellular calcium overload and kupfer cell activation are not investigated. (S)-2HG has been shown to affect the activities of mitochondrial dehydrogenases and overall redox state of cells (see Intlekofer AM 2017;13:494-500). The authors need provide additional data on the metabolic effect of (S)-2HG.

3. The authors need to provide additional data that show the degree of liver injury in the experimental model. For example, histology and measurements of tissue edema and distribution.

4. The authors only use female rats in their study. Please provide a justification for using only one sex.

5. The bar graphs should be replaced with dot blots to show individual data points.
Validity of the findings: The authors do not provide sufficient data to support their initial hypothesis that EGLN inhibition by (S)-2HG protects against hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Observations made by the authors may be valid and reproducible, but the provided experimental data is not sufficient to support their initial hypothesis.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CONSERVED MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN PROVIDE EVIDENCE INDICATING THE ORIGIN OF SARS-COV-2 AND A PANGOLIN-COV (MP789) BY RECOMBINATION(S) BETWEEN SPECIFIC LINEAGES OF SARBECOVIRUSES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors show analysis of conserved inserts and deletions (CSIs) in coronaviruses, in specific, sarbecoviruses. They use this analysis to suggest origins of SARS-CoV-2 and other sarbecoviruses. While investigating the viral protein sequences of the spike and nucleocapsid proteins, they find 17 CSIs and are able to compare these CSIs between lineages of sarbecoviruses and suggest that genetic recombination may have occurred in the evolutionary origin of clusters/clades of sarbecoviruses (ie SARS-CoV-2r).

The paper is clearly written and organized well.  The introduction is appropriate for the content of the results and discussion. Figures demonstrate the data well.
Experimental design: Experimental design is well thought out and describes the methodology appropriately.  I recommend updating the nomenclature for the variants of concern as the WHO has implemented a new system and the lineage naming for B.1.617 has changed (lines 190-192).
Validity of the findings: Conclusions are well supported and comparisons to other published studies are made where appropriate.  Sequences used are properly labeled for reference.
Additional comments: Please correct spelling of Cambodia in line 117.  In addition please update citations style of line 105 to match the other citations in the manuscript. Line 394 should state marked '7' and line 399 should state marked '8'.  Figures 1 and 9 would benefit from increased resolution.  Figure 8 needs to be reformatted for better viewing as the text covers the figure.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CONSERVED MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN PROVIDE EVIDENCE INDICATING THE ORIGIN OF SARS-COV-2 AND A PANGOLIN-COV (MP789) BY RECOMBINATION(S) BETWEEN SPECIFIC LINEAGES OF SARBECOVIRUSES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: In this manuscript, the authors investigate the recombination origins of the coronaviruses and the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 by using phylogenetic analyses and observations of conserved indels. The authors also model indel positions on the structure of spike protein. This work definitely adds to our understanding of coronavirus recombination complexity, however, I have major concerns that would need to be addressed:

Major comment 1: The manuscript is well written but it feels way too long and laborious, with too many figures that show the same concept. There is a great deal of repetition in the written paragraphs as well. The authors intermix background with results quite often. I think that the manuscript can be written in a more concise and simpler way, it is possible to make it half as long as it is now, maybe even shorter. As it is now, it shows the author’s thought process in detail, however, this can all be put in text in a more simple way. I would suggest doing that, as well as moving some of the less important figures into supplemental material.

Minor comment 1: CSI labels in figures and in the text are at times off.
Minor comment 2: Figures 2-6 are unnecessarily large and contain repetitive information, can be made into 1-2 figures with panels instead.
Minor comment 3: I could not properly review figure 8 as the text was scrambled on top of the figure, this figure needs to be made better.
Minor comment 4: I would refrain from numbering paragraphs in Discussion.
Experimental design: Major comment 1: There are plenty of recombination detection strategies out there, whether with or without help of phylogeny. The approach of manually making separate trees for regions of interest in order to detect recombination is quite outdated and may serve as an initial screen. This is also true for pairwise distance comparisons (amino acid or nucleotide, which for obvious reasons would always give very similar results, and did here as well.) I would recommend the authors try to confirm their recombination hypothesis using some of the more recent tools for recombination detection. This may also help to detect where a putative recombination breakpoint would be situated.

Minor comment 1.	I would find Figure 1 a lot more informative if all the taxa that was used for inference of the Spike tree were also used in the separate inferences of NTD and RBD.
Validity of the findings: Major comment 1: The authors need to discuss the possibility of indel convergence and reversion, which does happen, and how this would affect their conclusions. The authors highlight that the CSI patterns are explained by recombination since it is the most parsimonious explanation, however, they fail to discuss other possible mechanisms that could give similar results.

Minor comment 1: The statement in line 306 that trees are often not resolved due to the listed variables is not correct. Most often trees are unresolved when there is not enough signal in the data to provide correct relationships between taxa. All the mentioned variables affect the topology of the tree, and less so whether it is resolved or not.
Minor comment 2: Line 273-274 statement that the described clusters and lineages are not supported by good bootstrap is incorrect. As far as I can see from the tree, lineage 3 is supported by 99% bootstrap, Lineage 1 support looks like it is 98% (low image resolution - that should be fixed before publication) , CoVZC is supported by 100% and so is lineage 2. I would not call this low bootstrap support, this is very good support. In addition, I would not consider the branches of the tree short, given the scale of 0.2, from viral evolution perspective.
Minor comment 3: Figure 9 on its own is very unclear, just by looking at it I am having hard time understanding the mechanisms that the authors are trying to show. I do not understand what arrows and x means in the figure. In addition, it seems to me that the authors have placed a putative recombination breakpoint in the figure, right between S1-NTD and S1-CTD, however, there is no support in the article exactly where a breakpoint should be positioned. Also, to me it looks like S1-NTD and S1-CTD lengths differ between panels A and B, although by the number of amino acids they should be of identical length.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CONSERVED MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN PROVIDE EVIDENCE INDICATING THE ORIGIN OF SARS-COV-2 AND A PANGOLIN-COV (MP789) BY RECOMBINATION(S) BETWEEN SPECIFIC LINEAGES OF SARBECOVIRUSES
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors did a great job of detailing the complex and rapidly changing landscape of SARS-CoV-2 spike evolution. This is clearly a relevant topic and the authors presented a thorough yet interesting perspective of the ancestry of these conserved indels. I would recommend this paper for publication in PeerJ upon consideration of the following major concerns:

1. I think the authors should reformat and trim down their text in the results section 3.2. While I can’t argue against the importance of any one CSI metric or observation, I think too much text is dedicated to each and in my opinion the reader loses the importance of each in relation to each other. Only at line 576, when figure 9 is referenced, did the author’s interpretation of the CSIs start to come fully into picture for me. I think it would benefit the reader if the 3.2 section were laid out in sub-headers:

1a. S1-NTD, e.g. unless I misinterpret, lines 322-357 and 370-387 are setting the stage for the exact same evolutionary interpretation for CSI 1-6 in S1-NTD.
1b. S1-CTD.
1c. Others of interest – in here, I’d consider stripping the most text in reference to these other CSIs. E.g. when I read lines 358-369 and 411-430 I think juxtaposing them as i.e. “extra CSIs not informing recombination” would help the reader in interpreting the importance of these other CSIs.

I would consider revising the figures to follow this structure as well. E.g. Figure 2a, 2b, and 3b could be combined to highlight the similar interpretation taken from each CSI. Perhaps the actual amino acid sequence could be moved to supplemental and graphical depictions (akin to Figure 9) of the relationships and identified CSIs could be used in place.

Overall, I’d consider a strong editorial eye in terms of excessive text in reference to the CSIs. E.g. Line 579-587 had been stated repeatedly throughout. I’d make every effort to get to the point of line 587 more quickly.

2. The conclusions section is poorly framed. The immediate jump into the importance of this work for diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines seems to come from nowhere while the majority of the text has been dedicated to evolutionary dynamics and the impact of recombination. E.g. If the authors intend to emphasize diagnostics, I would introduce this concept more throughout. However, a simple rehash of figure 9 in context with the phylogeny, identity, and protein structure would be sufficient for the conclusion.
Experimental design: No concerns with the experimental design. The authors use the majority of available zoonotic data of related SARS-CoV-2 strains.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: Minor comments:
1.	Throughout, the authors use various nomenclature for BatCoV-RaTG13, some with spaces and others with dashes. Please consider standardizing to Line 459 “Bat-CoV-RaTG13”
2.	Line 376: I’d recommend the expansion on this point about sequencing error in lieu of more time on diagnostic impacts in the discussion. I’d consider adding a line or two in the discussion to reinforce the potential limitation of this work as it applies to sequencing errors and how bioinformatic pipelines may influence the presence/absence of indels.
3.	The authors could bolster their rationale for CSI investigations by referencing the other ways in which to investigate these recombination hypotheses either computationally or through reverse genetic techniques. Presumably the authors could reference the difficulty in wet lab approaches to confirming these recombination hypotheses because of the clear issues regarding gain-of-function experimentation.
4.	When the authors reference the CSI they occasionally reference just the number (e.g. Line 655) and other times reference the number and figure (e.g. line 697). I’d recommend following the structure of 697.
5.	Figure 8 & 9. Any chance of labeling the CSI number on Figure 9 as well? It would help when reading the text. E.g. place 6, 3, 1, 8, and 9 on the SARS-CoV-2r S1-NTD CSIs. Similarly, there are overlapping formatting issues on my version of Figure 8, but I’d also include the CSI numbers here too.
6.	Line 52: I’d describe what RShSTT is in the abstract like you do for CoVZC/PrC31.
7.	Line 102-105: difficult sentence structure, consider moving the MERS-CoV fragment to the front of the sentence.
8.	Line 112: list the species of RaTG13 isolation.
9.	Line 121: “distantly” not “distinctly”.
10.	Line 140-142: needs commas.
11.	Line 184: change “a” to “the”.
12.	Line 189: change “variant of concerns”, to “variants of concern”.
13.	Line 328: I think that figure 2 is NTD but authors reference CTD here.
14.	Line 409: change to “significance”, not “significances”.
15.	Line 462, authors reference C-terminal region of the spike protein (i.e. from aa 320-1265). However, this region is not shown in figure 7.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CONSERVED MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN PROVIDE EVIDENCE INDICATING THE ORIGIN OF SARS-COV-2 AND A PANGOLIN-COV (MP789) BY RECOMBINATION(S) BETWEEN SPECIFIC LINEAGES OF SARBECOVIRUSES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The length of the manuscript is greatly improved.  The authors have made my recommended changes.  Unfortunately, the classification of Delta they made is incorrect. The methods says B.1.617 but is should say B.1.617.2.
B.1.617.1 (Delta) is written in all the figures but the sequence used for analysis (	EPI_ISL_2400521) is B.1.617.2 (Delta).  B.1.617.1 is actually the Kappa variant and wasn't used for the analysis.  These changes need to be made prior to publication.
Experimental design: The use of RDP5 on default settings seems unwise as it does not account for the S1-NTD sequence region, a region discussed extensively in this manuscript.  Perhaps testing other programs would prove more useful for validation of recombination.  The resolution of figure S7 is also poor and needs to be improved.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: Minor comment: Please fix the arrow, it is covering the Ssp1 text in Supplemental Figure 5.
Minor comment: Figure legends need to be updated, I noticed a few discrepancies in the main figure legends.
Minor comment: Figure 6 has an incongruent recombination breakpoint label and graphical representation of it.  Also the percent identity in A (96.86% as this corresponds to Wuhan-Hu-1 but this an unidentified virus) is a bit misleading, perhaps label it so as to make this clear.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CONSERVED MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN PROVIDE EVIDENCE INDICATING THE ORIGIN OF SARS-COV-2 AND A PANGOLIN-COV (MP789) BY RECOMBINATION(S) BETWEEN SPECIFIC LINEAGES OF SARBECOVIRUSES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: All concerns have been addressed
Experimental design: All concerns have been addressed
Validity of the findings: All concerns have been addressed
Additional comments: The article still feels little too long but I can see that the authors made significant attempts to shorten it and simplify. Current structure is a lot better.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: CONSERVED MOLECULAR SIGNATURES IN THE SPIKE PROTEIN PROVIDE EVIDENCE INDICATING THE ORIGIN OF SARS-COV-2 AND A PANGOLIN-COV (MP789) BY RECOMBINATION(S) BETWEEN SPECIFIC LINEAGES OF SARBECOVIRUSES
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The authors have done a great job polishing this manuscript and for the most part have addressed all of the concerns I had in my first review. I appreciate their effort to synthesize a number of deeply thought out interactions and navigate the reader through the complex scenarios. It is now much more concise, clear, and interpretable. As the authors said, I think their movement of certain figures to the supplement and their modifications to the figures that remain are a big improvement.

Three additional points: 1. I still think there could be some text removed/combined from the discussion where points are reiterated throughout, for example in lines 498-537. 2. I'd consider revising the title more.  My opinion would be “Conserved Molecular Signatures in the Spike Protein Provide Evidence Indicating the Origin of SARS-CoV-2 and Pangolin-CoV (MP789) by Recombination(s) between Specific lineages of Sarbecoviruses”. 3. While i recommended that the authors consider discussing other computational techniques to assess recombination I did not necessarily suggest that they ADD analyses to this paper and I'm not immediately sure of the added value in the addition of RDP5 or the sufficient description of that figure. Nevertheless, it does support that recombination occurred and does not take up much text. I'd advise the authors to do one more detailed look at whether they think this analysis is truly needed or whether they just added it to satisfy a reviewer. If the latter then i would remove.
Experimental design: No concerns with the experimental design. The authors use the majority of available zoonotic data of related SARS-CoV-2 strains.
Validity of the findings: No comment.
Additional comments: - In figure 1 and S1, I’d consider adding "RShSTT" into the description on the trees at that clade. It is referred to a number of times in the text and the reader doesn't always know which clade to go back to when it just states "Other Bat-SARS-CoV-2 related CoV strains" on the tree.

- Line 276, spell out your reference to “B-1” when first introducing it here. Presumably the authors are referring to lineage-1?

- 492-496 is a difficult sentence to read. Perhaps break into two sentences?

- Line 550 "...play A critical role...”


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE LEUKOCYTE TELOMERE LENGTH, SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISMS NEAR TERC GENE AND RISK OF COPD
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Article analyses

Authors aimed to explore the leukocyte TL and genotypes for single nucleotide polymorphisms rs12696304 (C>G) and rs10936599 (C>T) near TERC in COPD cases compared with healthy individuals. The topic is interesting and relevant. Manuscript is well structured.
English grammar and style should be improved in some places (e.g. line 178 the smoking habits did not influenced the LTL”).
In figure 1 it is written "the LTL is presented as mean ± standard deviation (SEM)", but only mean is presented.
Please format table 1.
The information in lines 124-129 and 140-145 repeats the information which is provided in table 2 and table 3. I suggest mentioning only significant results and do not rewrite figures in the text, because they can be seen in the tables.
Lines 166-167 provide the same information as the figure.
Experimental design: The topic is relevant. The materials and methods part is described clearly.
Validity of the findings: In lines 178-179 authors write “the smoking habits did not influence the LTL either in patients (p=0.644, 179 ANOVA test) or in controls (p=0.712, ANOVA test)”. Could you clarify between which groups you compared LTL length (current smokers vs. nonsmokers separately in COPD patients and healthy subjects?) and could you provide the LTL length in these groups.
In the discussion part authors focus mainly on LTL length but I missed more discussion about single nucleotide polymorphisms near TERC gene. Could you extend the discussion in this direction. I suggest to discuss and compare your results with the results from research which analyze SNP near TERC in other diseases which main pathogenesis is related with chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE LEUKOCYTE TELOMERE LENGTH, SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISMS NEAR TERC GENE AND RISK OF COPD
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Comments to the Authors
Summary: The manuscript is about telomere length and SNPs in Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. Authors have found no statistical difference between LTL in COPD patients` and controls¬` group, although for the patients` telomeres were slightly shorter. They found that the carriers of the common homozygous genotype of the SNPs (rs12696304 C and rs10936599 C) had higher risk for COPD in comparison with other allele variants, which is an interesting observation that the minor alleles have rather protective properties, and it could be studied further.

Recommendation for the corrections:

1.       Introduction.
a) Line 34 needs correction of punctuation mistakes. Needs precision of what is the minimum number of telomere repeats.
b) Missing a clear hypothesis of the study.
Experimental design: 2.       Methods.
a) The description of samples also could be clearer. As it is not clear why for example only a small part of samples was used for the LTL determination. Why is there a difference for an average age of about 10 years for the control group and patients? As for TL there is a difference in these two age groups in the literature.
b) Table 1 and other Tables too must be more in order so that text is aligned everywhere and are not so chaotic. Table 4 has a mistake, is it 19 or 190 samples?
c) Regarding qPCR for TL determination. Authors have measured absolute TL, but that number is very high (healthy people in average 21 271 bp). There is information in the literature showing that an average telomere length ranges from 10 to 12 Kbp in new-borns to 5 to 6 Kbp in people older than 60 years. The method for the TL determination should be reconsidered and rather relative TL should be measured (Cawthon, 2002).
d) Also, in description of qPCR for TL and reference genes Efficiency should be determined (and should be from 95-105%). Samples are better to run in triplicates not only in duplicates as it is a rather sensitive method.
Validity of the findings: 3.       Results.
a) The first two titles for the subsections should be written in synchronized form.
b) It could be interesting to see if there is a difference in TL among those three COPD stages, although it is clear that the sample amount is small for the last stage.
c) As I wrote before the assay for measuring should be considered as authors did not see difference in age, sex and smoking habits which is rather unusual as in the literature these are factors that clearly affects TL.

4.       Discussion.
a) Text is a bit chaotic which makes some parts of the text seem redundant.
b) Lines 221 and 222 need punctuation correction.
c) How can authors conclude that LTL is shorter in patients with COPD, but it is not related to the genotype? I did not find any description in the results about TL in different genotypes. I don`t think that conclusion can be drawn only from a fact that they obtained higher frequency of the referent allele of both SNPs (rs12696304 and rs10936599) in the patients` group with shorter telomeres, especially if the difference was not significant and samples were not that many.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: THE LEUKOCYTE TELOMERE LENGTH, SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE POLYMORPHISMS NEAR TERC GENE AND RISK OF COPD
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors corrected manuscript according to the comments and in my opinion it meets the PeerJ criteria
Experimental design: Authors corrected manuscript according to the comments and in my opinion it meets the PeerJ criteria
Validity of the findings: Authors corrected manuscript according to the comments and in my opinion it meets the PeerJ criteria
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREVALENCE OF DEPRESSION AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN CHINA DURING THE EARLY STAGE OF THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: This was a cross-sectional online study. It investigated the prevalence of depression among Chinese adolescents during COVID-19 and its associated factors. It found the prevalece of depression was 36.6%. Female, senior secondary school students, sleep duration <6 hours/day, and living in Hubei province were significantly associated with higher risk of depression.It was written  well in English.
Experimental design: The research question was well defined.Methods were described with sufficient information.
Validity of the findings: The study found depression was common among adolescent during the COVID-19 break and interventions are needed for depressed adolecents among the diesease pandemic. Conclusion are well stated.
Additional comments: Materials & Methods
Line 86 Participant with severe mental disorder were excluded. It was easy to describe. However, how did you exclude these participants during investigation? This may be not an exclusion.

Discussion
Female was associated with higher risk of depression. Please discuss the possible reason.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREVALENCE OF DEPRESSION AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN CHINA DURING THE EARLY STAGE OF THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. In the methods part of abstract, please briefly describe the inclusion of subjects and data collected during the online survey. In the results part of abstract, please provide statistics such as OR and P values of factors associated with depressive symptoms.

2. Please carefully check the English language of this manuscript such as “negative detrimental impact” in line 36-37.

3. The sample is not nationally representative, so the authors may consider to tone down the title “national survey”.

4. Introduction. The authors focused on 1. Prevalence of and 2. Factors associate with depression in adolescents during the pandemic, so a brief review on existing studies on the two aspects of adolescents during the pandemic is necessary.

5. Psychosocial, academic, and family related factors are commonly reported as correlates of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Candidate factors included in this study are very limited.

6. It would be interesting to report the prevalence of depressive symptoms of varying severities according to CESD scores.
Experimental design: 1. In the methods part of abstract, please briefly describe the inclusion of subjects and data collected during the online survey. In the results part of abstract, please provide statistics such as OR and P values of factors associated with depressive symptoms.

2. Please carefully check the English language of this manuscript such as “negative detrimental impact” in line 36-37.

3. The sample is not nationally representative, so the authors may consider to tone down the title “national survey”.

4. Introduction. The authors focused on 1. Prevalence of and 2. Factors associate with depression in adolescents during the pandemic, so a brief review on existing studies on the two aspects of adolescents during the pandemic is necessary.

5. Psychosocial, academic, and family related factors are commonly reported as correlates of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Candidate factors included in this study are very limited.

6. It would be interesting to report the prevalence of depressive symptoms of varying severities according to CESD scores.
Validity of the findings: 1. In the methods part of abstract, please briefly describe the inclusion of subjects and data collected during the online survey. In the results part of abstract, please provide statistics such as OR and P values of factors associated with depressive symptoms.

2. Please carefully check the English language of this manuscript such as “negative detrimental impact” in line 36-37.

3. The sample is not nationally representative, so the authors may consider to tone down the title “national survey”.

4. Introduction. The authors focused on 1. Prevalence of and 2. Factors associate with depression in adolescents during the pandemic, so a brief review on existing studies on the two aspects of adolescents during the pandemic is necessary.

5. Psychosocial, academic, and family related factors are commonly reported as correlates of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Candidate factors included in this study are very limited.

6. It would be interesting to report the prevalence of depressive symptoms of varying severities according to CESD scores.
Additional comments: 1. In the methods part of abstract, please briefly describe the inclusion of subjects and data collected during the online survey. In the results part of abstract, please provide statistics such as OR and P values of factors associated with depressive symptoms.

2. Please carefully check the English language of this manuscript such as “negative detrimental impact” in line 36-37.

3. The sample is not nationally representative, so the authors may consider to tone down the title “national survey”.

4. Introduction. The authors focused on 1. Prevalence of and 2. Factors associate with depression in adolescents during the pandemic, so a brief review on existing studies on the two aspects of adolescents during the pandemic is necessary.

5. Psychosocial, academic, and family related factors are commonly reported as correlates of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Candidate factors included in this study are very limited.

6. It would be interesting to report the prevalence of depressive symptoms of varying severities according to CESD scores.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREVALENCE OF DEPRESSION AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN CHINA DURING THE EARLY STAGE OF THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The article included sufficient introduction and background. It was well written in English.
Experimental design: The submission  clearly define the research question.
Validity of the findings: The conclusions was appropriately stated
Additional comments: none


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: PREVALENCE OF DEPRESSION AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN CHINA DURING THE EARLY STAGE OF THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: I have no further comments. The authors have addressed my concerns.
Experimental design: I have no further comments. The authors have addressed my concerns.
Validity of the findings: I have no further comments. The authors have addressed my concerns.
Additional comments: I have no further comments. The authors have addressed my concerns.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HYPERTENSION CARE CASCADE IN THE INGWAVUMA RURAL COMMUNITY, UMKHANYAKUDE DISTRICT, KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCE OF SOUTH AFRICA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. There is no flow/continuity in the introduction and hence it can be reframed.

Instead, the reframed of the introduction in the following way can be considered:
- Globally and the country wise burden with current Covid 19 situation.
- What is HCC? Importance of HCC and its effects.
- Influencers of HCC, screening and control.
- The Need to assess / the rationale followed by objectives.
Experimental design: 1. Study Design:
    Before writing about study instrument the author could have mentioned ,
•	Study design
•	Sampling frame
•	Study participants
•	Inclusion & exclusion criteria
•	Study period
•	Sample size
2. Settings:
Addition of map of study location will help international audience to understand the demography of the study settings and boundaries followed by the characteristics like rural and education to have a flow.
Reference for lines 89-90 should be provided.

As it is a paper of non-communicable disease what is the relevance of communicable disease like HIV prevalence twice (lines 59 and lines 92) in introduction as well as in methods?
3. Sampling:
Sampling is most likely to be multistage random sampling- district-village-household with adults being the final sampling unit. However, there is no mention about sampling and the sample size.
How households has been chosen there is no mention about it? E.g KISH method for WHO STEPS or something else.
4. No mention about confounders and effect modifiers. Comment on potential bias in the study and how recall bias was addressed?
Validity of the findings: - sample size calculation and sampling design is not mention. Comment about internal and external validity of findings in light of sample size and sampling design.

-Good explanation of absolute and relative progression rates. However,
Mention on summary of continuous variables as mean +/- SD or Median(IQR) is missing e.g., age

- Post hoc tests has already been mentioned but use of ANOVA is missing and can be
  included.
- Few lines about missing data may be added for more clarity.
- Figure 1 has very nicely represented the flow. However, the number of participants in
  each level is missed unlike the mention of prevalence in lines 199-200.
Additional comments: 1.     More emphasis has been given to statistics part of the abstract. There was no information on :
        Study design, questionnaire/ study tool, inclusion and exclusion criteria in the abstract
2.	General alignment of text and overall spacing must be uniform.
3.	Name of the table titles needs to be improved.
        E.g., Table 1: Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of adults (N=131)
       Table 2 title not appropriate – as it is about association and there is no mention about the same.
       Table 3: Title not complete.
4. 	Figure 2 is a good thought however (prevalence and gap can be showed in the same vertical bar)
        and can be compared amongst gender or age whichever is appropriate.
5.	Comment on strengths also.

6.     Comment about your finding in comparison with national / international perspective. Also state the
       potential reasons for differences if any.
7.    Few lines may be added about the generalizability of the study.
8.    Funding source may be added.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HYPERTENSION CARE CASCADE IN THE INGWAVUMA RURAL COMMUNITY, UMKHANYAKUDE DISTRICT, KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCE OF SOUTH AFRICA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The introduction is well written but it is not clear enough to me what is the context that the authors are trying to place their work in. The paragraphs move from discussing stroke to treatment cascade and then management of hypertension, reduction of hypertension in South Africa and finally interaction of COVID-19 and hypertension. I would suggest to keep the attention of the reader in the treatment cascade for hypertension and the importance of screening, treating and controlling hypertension. I have suggested some literature to add to the references used by the authors hoping they would provide some help to the authors to place the work they have done in a better context and adding some other work done in South Africa:
-	Int J Epidemiol 2014 Feb;43(1):116-28. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyt215.
-	Glob Heart. 2017 Jun; 12(2): 81–90. doi:10.1016/j.gheart.2017.01.007
-	BMJ Global Health 2019;4:e001386. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001386
The structure of the manuscript follows a clear structure with some subtitles that help the reader to follow the text.
Tables are clear and I would like to add some minor comments that could facilitate the understanding of the content.
-	Table 1 and Table 3, I would add something in the title that guides the reader about the sample used like that they are from the “Ingwavuma rural community” and where the sample comes from.
-	Table 1, spell out PA
-	Table 1, I would place the total in the heading of the table or the first row.
-	Table 3, spell out COR and AOR maybe as a footnote
-	Table 3, I would mark significant p-values in bold.
Figures are relevant, good quality and well labeled.
Raw data was supplied.
Experimental design: The work presents the issue of the treatment cascade of hypertension which is very relevant in an ageing society with increasing number of older people with hypertension and other chronic conditions.
Knowing the level of people with hypertension in rural Africa properly diagnosed, treated and controlled is crucial and this paper is covering part of the knowledge gap in this regard.
The design of the work needs to be more detailed, especially on the recruitment of participants so other researchers could replicate the work. This is explained in more detail in my comments below under General Comments.
The analysis of the study is well done, the diagnosis of the different conditions is done using the most advanced mobile equipment and the definitions of a case are following the international epidemiological standards. The study was ethically sound.
Validity of the findings: This is a cross-sectional study and the analysis performed is statistically sound.
Additional comments: Abstract
a-	Last sentence of results I would rephrase the sentence to avoid using “respectively” by just moving the percentage and the AOR parenthesis just after the two variables the data refer to.
Methods
a-	Line 99, at the end of the sentence there is a number that needs to be deleted. Maybe this was a reference from a previous version of the manuscript.
b-	Setting is well explained and very detailed.
c-	Line 106, I would suggest adding a reference for the STEPS questionnaire for those readers who are not familiar with this questionnaire.
d-	Line 109, I would suggest adding “was” after “open-ended questions”.
e-	Lines 114 to 116 would be easier to read if split into two sentences: one on the individuals and the other about the households and maybe starting with the households’ part.
f-	Lines 116 to 119, it would be good to know when this first phase was done, whether it was done at a household visit or in the health facilities and whether it was done using the modified STEPS questionnaire. This will help to understand line 122 and 123 when authors refer to household-based surveys and measurement clinics.
Participants
a-	Line 127, the authors refer to 400 participants as the population used to select the study sample but, in the abstract, they mention 393 participants. Please clarify.
b-	It is not clear how these 131 adults were selected from the 393 or 400 participants and whether the level in the treatment cascade were they were found was used in the selection. For example, people who had known their hypertension condition for few years should be at the end of the treatment cascade with controlled blood pressure but those recently diagnosed possibly would only be on the screen or diagnosis phase. Please clarify.
c-	If there is the need to cut words in this manuscript, this section could be reduced as most of the data is already in Table 1.
d-	Line 128, I would say “Over two fifths (42.7%) were 60 plus years old, nearly a quarter (23.7%)…” I would put a full-stop after unemployment to separate socio-demographic data from measured data.
Measurements and definitions
a-	The description of the different measurements is excellent.
b-	I would only avoid the use of “respectively” in line 151 by placing the values after the different levels of diabetes used. The same applies to line 165 and levels of Physical activity.
c-	Please add the acronym PA after Physical activity in line 160.
Outcome variables
a-	Line 170, I would add “the” before “outcome”.
b-	Line 173, I would rephrase the sentence to avoid using “respectively”.
Results
a-	The results are well explained and the reference to tables is clearly stated.
b-	Line 201, I would rephrase the sentence to avoid using “respectively”.
c-	Line 213 and 215, please specify in which direction BMI is associated to awareness of hypertension. Where they “more” aware of their status?
d-	Line 218, I would say “participants aged 60 years and above”
e-	Under Factors associated with screening for hypertension, I would suggest presenting employment effect together and then marital status, avoiding repetitions.
Discussion and conclusions
These two sections are very well written and expressed. The authors finish the manuscript with important policy and strategic recommendations that could be useful in future primary health care planning for chronic conditions.
a-	I would only recommend introducing some references on how Community Health Workers were introduced in South Africa and what are the Government expectations on their work as first line to fight NCD.
b-	First and fourth paragraph (lines 238-248 and 266-274) refer to access to health care. I would recommend joining them or placing them one after the other.
c-	Not sure I am following the importance of the sentence in lines 306 to 309 as an explanation of why women have higher control of their blood pressure compare to men. Moreover, the rest of the explanation makes total sense making this sentence, in my opinion, unnecessary.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HYPERTENSION CARE CASCADE IN THE INGWAVUMA RURAL COMMUNITY, UMKHANYAKUDE DISTRICT, KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCE OF SOUTH AFRICA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Well written and modified manuscript
Experimental design: Modified as suggested and satisfactory
Validity of the findings: Satisfactory modification done
Additional comments: Acceptable to the satisfaction


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: HYPERTENSION CARE CASCADE IN THE INGWAVUMA RURAL COMMUNITY, UMKHANYAKUDE DISTRICT, KWAZULU-NATAL PROVINCE OF SOUTH AFRICA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The article reads well and has all the necessary elements for publication.
Experimental design: Research methods are well described and do not need further corrections.
Validity of the findings: Findings, analysis and conclusions are sound and well explained.
Additional comments: All issues raised by me in the first reading of the manuscript have been covered by the authors. No additional comments.


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ADDING PIECES TO THE PUZZLE: INSIGHTS INTO DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS OF CUMACEA (CRUSTACEA: PERACARIDA) FROM THE DEEP NORTH ATLANTIC TO THE ARCTIC OCEAN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: 1. Line 36 and 330, phrase "all seven known families", as correctly acknowledged in other places in the article, there are 8 accepted families of Cumacea. If you mean the seven known from the North Atlantic, state that, because as it is written it is incorrect.
2. Line 105, the family Nannastacidae is not particularly predominantly a warm water group, it is globally distributed including at both poles and in deep water, do you have a citation for this assumption? Bodotriidae is more of a warm water family.
3. Line 190, why "so-called Brenke sled", why not just Brenke Sled?
4. Line 339, families not recovered as monophyletic: using primarily a short fragment of highly variable 16S, that is not a surprise. One does not expect to recover deeper phylogeny with a single, highly variable, short fragment that is appropriate for assessing population/species level relationships. Please remove this statement or amend it to point out that one would not expect to recover them as monophyletic with this fragment, as it might be used to suggest that all the families are not monophyletic, which is not a reasonable conclusion based on this data.
5. Line 668, "support the assumption", it is not an assumption, it is a suggestion. Assumption means a thing that is accepted as true without proof or evidence, which is not the situation being described. Hansen's suggestion was based on observation, and our suggestion (Watling & Gerken 2005) was based on observation and analysis of species distributions.
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: This is an important contribution to cumacean systematics, and as such should be published.
Additional comments: No additional comments


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: ADDING PIECES TO THE PUZZLE: INSIGHTS INTO DIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS OF CUMACEA (CRUSTACEA: PERACARIDA) FROM THE DEEP NORTH ATLANTIC TO THE ARCTIC OCEAN
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The writing style is in general good, as is the English. All manuscripts (written by native and non-native English speakers alike!) contain grammatical mistakes, but these are to be expected. I thank the authors for what are, in the vast majority, clearly written sentences with easy to follow logic and argumentation. Specific line-by-line corrections are provided in the attached PDF. The article structure, figures, and tables are all sufficient. Data have not been shared yet, but this can be easily fixed. The results are relevant to the hypotheses.
Experimental design: This is original primary research of proper scope, with a well-defined, relevant, and meaningful question. It definitely expands our knowledge and fills a critical research gap. Analyses are in general well-conducted and sufficient, with one suggested addition (item 2 in the attached PDF)
Validity of the findings: Conclusions (meaning explaining why the observed results might have occurred, what they tell us about a larger picture, or why they are interesting/important) are often lacking. The potential is absolutely there, and the authors have already included basically all of the introductory/background information needed for the reader to glean this understanding. Specific examples with suggestions to expand/improve are given in the attached PDF.
Additional comments: Please see the attached PDF for general and specific comments. A lot of really good, thoughtful, and well-done work went into this project, which is admirably large in geographic scope and overarching "vantage point". It may seem that many pieces of the ms were critiqued, but it is definitely a very worthy work which deserves some time spent to improve it, so it can have the impact on readers it deserves. Overall a very good effort that just needs a little more attention in some regards!


Instruction: You are one of the reviewers, your task is to write a review for the article. You will be given the title of the article, the number of the round in which the article is located, and your order among the reviewers.

Input:
Title: TEMPERATURE-INDUCED CHANGES IN EGG WHITE ANTIMICROBIAL CONCENTRATIONS DURING PRE-INCUBATION DO NOT INFLUENCE BACTERIAL TRANS-SHELL PENETRATION BUT DO AFFECT HATCHLING PHENOTYPE IN MALLARDS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: there are fundamental errrors in this study. The authors state that they measured lysozyme concentration, but in reality they measure antibacterial activity against one Micrococcus strain. It is well known that, in the period after the egg was laid, the pH increases and this triggers spontaneous degradation of ovotransferrin into a range fo antimicrobial peptides. This may explain why the authors think they have seen an increase in lysozyme concentration, which actually is biologically impossible. The authors state that they have measured avidin concentration, but nowhere in their M&M they mention the use of biotin, which is the essential key of the test of Gan & Marquardt and Shawkey et al.
The authors state they measured infection of egg white. however, they only quantified bacterial DNA, which very well may come from dead bacterial cells, killed by the antimicrobial components of the egg white, so this is also not correct.
Validity of the findings: Underlying data have not been provided: we miss the data on incidence and intensity of BTSI (how many eggs were positive?).
Lysozyme in produced in the magnum of the oviduct in the female, and deposited in the egg white in this way. Thus it is biologically impossible that the lysozyme concentration would increase after oviposition.
The authors should check the definition of the word 'infection'.
Hatching success increases with partial incubation of eggs. There is a good chance that this is the consequence of survival of the smaller embryo's, which would not have survived otherwise.
There is no proof of a causal relationship between lysozyme concentration and scaled body mass index, even if lysozyme concentration would have been measured.
Additional comments: No additional comments