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: REDUCING PUBLICATION DELAY TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY AND IMPACT OF CONSERVATION SCIENCE
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: This is an insightful paper that is well written and clearly thought through, and I would like to congratulate the authors for that. I am also happy to see this issue receiving more research attention as it is a key issue for authors, editors, publishers and funders to consider. I have nonetheless a number of hopefully helpful concerns I would like to bring to the authors. I detail them below.

INTRODUCTION
This is a well written section but I wonder if it could benefit from being more concise. For example is the paragraph starting Ln 77 necessary? I believe removing it would not impact the key narrative.

Ln 91-93 This example based on the CR strikes me as needing clarification. Is the argument that many species will have three generations in just a couple of years? Given what we know of publication delay in conservation, and assuming we can agree that the 10 years time interval is for the most part not relevant given average delays are much smaller, it would be good to see this point more clearly articulated.
Experimental design: METHODS
Ln 181-182 Why was the sample tested such a small proportion of the total dataset? I understand the accuracy was high but I am left wondering to what extent the test sample represents the wider dataset.

Ln220-223 I was curious as to why the effects of these different variables were looked into separately and not together. Would that not have helped us understand their relative importance?

Ln 224 I think it would be good to see explained in more detailed why more recently published studies may be more likely to suffer from delays. Is this an argument around COVID-19?

Ln 241 Using only the most threatened species can potentially provide a skewed vision of the results. How often was the most common status also the highest in the IURCN Red List. I believe providing more details around this is analysis crucial to allow the reader to interpret the results.

My main outstanding question for the Methods section was why there was no exploration of the delays at the outlet level. This is an important piece of information especially as latter on the authors recommend conservationists to pick those journals that are fastest. However, I am not aware of where that information is available and so that would be an important contribution.
Validity of the findings: No Comment
Additional comments: DISCUSSION
Ln 358-360 – I see these comparisons with other fields as useful but I suggest a little more nuance. For example a lot of the conservation literature is social science. This means often longer word counts and so a longer writing, peer-reviewing and revising process. To what extent to we need to take these comparisons with a pinch of salt? The assumption that mission driven disciplines have comparable literatures may not always hold.

Ln 374-377 I am unsure about by the explanation around the shorter delays for captive animal management. Several of the explanations advanced seem to me to be factors that are not related to the key metric which if I understand correctly starts counting from the end of the data collection only. At the same time the hypothesis the authors advance regarding the specialist journals could be tested given the dataset at hand correct? I think it would be good to see this explored a little more or see the authors simply acknowledge that its unclear what drives this result, if that is the case.

Ln 410-412 Given that we are talking of more than 25% of a year I would not dismiss this issue so readily. I would simply recognize this as a potential shortcoming of the methodology.

Ln 415-416 I understand this criticism but at the same time its not always helpful to simply label a process has too slow. Do the authors have views as to what would be an acceptable time from end of data collection to publication? I ask this as I think it would be good to have targets to aim towards.

Ln 420 -421 This reads to me as a little speculative. Why would you argue that given past results? Furter detail would be important.

Ln 450-452 This is undoubtedly true but does it help explain the disparities regarding other fields? In academia for example I would argue that there are many similarities between conservation and other fields yet we seem to be doing worse.. why is that?

Ln 463 Given how wide the variation is, I think this point should be made using an average measure. Otherwise I am not sure the number does support the assertion that follows.

Ln 465-467. This is assuming they are written all in the same way which is not my experience. Documents written for non-peer-reviewed outlets are written in a different style and often take a shorter time to prepare as they to not have to for example follow even broad structure of the journals of the field. This requires acknowledging

Ln 493-494 Indeed there have been many retractions but I think the most important questions whether that is more than expected? That seems implied but the reference does not quite support that statement in my view..

TABLE 1
•	Currently there is a lot of repetition across sections, as some measures are relevant to multiple stages. I wonder if it would be more effective to have the table organized by proposed measure with columns on the right where you would tick the different stages of delay that measure is relevant to?
•	Is the lack of guidelines on scientific writing really a limitation? I know of many resources on that issue so would appreciate a little more detail here on what is meant more precisely
•	One option not discussed here is the potential for a direct route where an article is either accepted of rejected with no option for corrections. This is done in several economics journals for example. See https://weai.org/view/EI-No-Revisions
•	Some of these suggestions seem too conceptual. I believe most authors believe they calibrate their submissions in a reasonable fashion the issue of course is that Editors and reviewers disagree (!). How would this recommendation be put in action?
•	Similar for the item on considering deadlines for peer-review. I am not sure what is being advocated for in concrete terms. I would suggest focusing only on actionable suggestions.
•	A similar point comes across when thinking of selecting the fastest journals. How would authors do that given the data is not always available? (also note that Biological Conservation is repeated twice)


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: REDUCING PUBLICATION DELAY TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY AND IMPACT OF CONSERVATION SCIENCE
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: I thank the authors for doing a tremendous work to improve their manuscript. Having carefully read the manuscript and checked its supplementary materials, I am glad to accept this paper for publication. There are just a few very minor technical errors that should be corrected:

Abstract: I suggest not to use ±2SD in Abstract or to replace it with 95% confidence intervals similar to Results. This is just for consistency and clarity as this error term is not provided in Results and supplementary materials.

Line 144: change “The aim is to cover” to “The aim was to cover”

Line 354: remove the dot after 2.84.

Lines 600-601: delete (note these are not endorsements, but suggestions) as it is already mentioned on lines 527-528
Experimental design: Strong and appropriate
Validity of the findings: Strongly valid and well presented
Additional comments: No 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: REDUCING PUBLICATION DELAY TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY AND IMPACT OF CONSERVATION SCIENCE
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Many thanks for the meaningful revisions and detailed replies to my queries. I have happy with the current version.
Experimental design: No comment
Validity of the findings: No comment
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 NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW-BACK PAIN AND RISK FACTORS AMONG MALE SOLDIERS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: While the authors should also be commended on the translation of this paper to English, punctuation and grammar do still need to be addressed. The grammatical errors are generally those that come from translating a paper to English and should not be seen as a disqualifier for this paper.

Figures/Tables: There appears to be a numbering sequence issue with the tables that may be a systems error (ie Table 3? Not mentioned in text, and does not exist, but is captioned).
Experimental design: Methods do need some additional detail. If these can be addressed then the paper can progress.
Validity of the findings: This may be improved by improving the grammar and clarity
Additional comments: The study reports on the prevalence of NSLP and associated risk factors in male soldiers in Saudi Arabia.
Overall, the study shows promise with a large sample size and wide representation of military personnel represented. The authors should also be commended on the translation of this paper to English.
GENERAL:
The term ‘incidence’ is used incorrectly. While prevalence is a % of a given population, incidence is time dependent (e.g., per 100 person-years). As such lines 41 and 223 are incorrect as NSLBP incidence cannot be a %.
In the abstract the sample size is listed as exactly 62,000 (also in the discussion – line 159). This sample size is not mentioned in the results, nor how it was determined in the methods. Please correct.
In the methods it states, ‘This cross-sectional correlation study was conducted on military personnel at king Khalid military city hospital, Hafar Al-Baten, Saudi Arabia’ (lines 82-83) but in Figure 1
there is mention of a three military bases from which the sample population is drawn. Please explain this relationship (between the hospital and bases) in the methods and results.
While English readability is established, punctuation and grammar do still need to be addressed. The grammatical errors are generally those that come from translating a paper to English.
Punctuation.
•	A full stop may be missing, or in the incorrect position (same with commas): E.g., lines: 71, 74, 76, etc.
Grammar
•	Single words used incorrectly or with the incorrect tense: E.g., line 42, ‘associated to’ should be ‘associated with’ and line 51 ‘complain’ should be ‘complaints’; other examples include lines 95, 100-101, 117, 211, etc.
•	General sentences varying in tense or singular/plural, etc., : E.g., lines: 88, 90-92, and 133-134.
•	When using lists, that is listing several factors, the words ‘and’ or ‘or’ should be applied between the second last and last item on the list. For example: Lines 60-61 (‘…psychological stress, history of back pain, and pre-existing conditions.) and lines 96-98 (‘…such as hypertension, or diabetes….’).
•	When using acronyms like LBP and NSLBP use them consistently throughout. For example, while LBP as an acronym is used in line 51 (start of the introduction), the term low back pain is still written though out. For example: Lines 71 (acronym introduced again), 88, 162, 174, 175, etc. The same occurs with NSLBP.
References in text:
•	When citing more than one reference, only a single set of brackets should be used. For example, line 53 ‘(Alnaami et al., 2019) ( Cunningham et al., 2006) should be ‘(Alnaami et al., 2019; Cunningham et al., 2006). Other examples are lines 63-64, & 71.
•	Spaces missing between word and reference (e.g., RMDQ(Makie et al, 2014)). Other examples are found in lines 107 and 111.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS
Introduction:
 The introduction currently reads as one very long paragraph. I suggest separating into several paragraphs. Potential new paragraphs could arise form line 64 (Military service begins…) and Line 74 (Several risk factors….).

Methods:
Lines 83-84. Why only male participants? Please give a reason as this limits transferability to other militaries (should also be noted in the limitations).
Results:
Line 127: The grouping of ‘Obese’ is introduced. How was this group determined? BMI? Please detail in the methods. Also introduce the age bins in the methods.
Lines 138 – 141 & 145-146: Details methods of undertaking the statistical analysis and should be reported in the methods.
Discussion:
Lines 161-170: Provide data from other populations. This data however is prevalence of LBP as opposed to NSLBP. It would be useful to present you clearly state your prevalence of LBP (as opposed to NSLBP only) and clarify if the other studies included the sacral region in their data. There is also little discussion of these studies as opposed to an almost list like delivery. What are the population sizes, did they include female soldiers, were they trainees or qualified officers? Etc
Lines 172-176: Supporting references are needed. Eg. ‘These results are supported by a similar study…’ Which study?
Line 184-186. A recommendation is made regarding early counselling to quit smoking. Is there any evidence to support this intervention is effective?
The limitations should also include lack of a female sample limiting transferability.


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 NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW-BACK PAIN AND RISK FACTORS AMONG MALE SOLDIERS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript requires professional editing
Experimental design: The methods section requires sufficient detail which the authors did not provide
Validity of the findings: Validity of the results affected by the poor reporting of the method section
Additional comments: Reviewer Comments

Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The authors did well in identifying an area of importance in Saudi Arabia, evaluating the prevalence and associated risk factors among male soldiers in Saudi Arabia.

Although the topic is worthy of research and concrete, there is more detail I would like to see in the introduction and methods section; as well as integration of a few additional references and concepts throughout the manuscript.

As such, this manuscript will require some revisions to meet the criteria for publication especially considering that the area of non-specific recurrent low back pain among soldiers is well known and well-researched with plenty of evidence from both developed and developed countries.
Therefore, I would like to read more on the unique contribution of this paper to the existing literature on low back pain among soldiers and there should be a very strong contextual justification presented in the introduction warranting the conduction of the study in Saudi Arabia besides the fact that nothing/litte has been documented about the topic.

As the research design is observational, the authors are recommended to review and apply the STROBE guidelines when writing this manuscript (available via the equator network at http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/) to the manuscript.

Please check carefully for grammar/syntax errors throughout the manuscript. Certain sentences are difficult to read in some places. I have illustrated where changes should be made in the main manuscript on my tracked changes document.

Specific comments

Introduction
1.	This paper needs to strongly emphasize its unique contribution to the literature base in the context of what other authors have already researched and reported especially studies from developing or developed countries with regards to the prevalence and associated factors to recurrent low back pain among soldiers (Hou et al; Chan et al;)
2.	The theoretical perspective to the problem is narrow in light of the many prevalence studies that have been conducted to answer the research question the authors are posing. There is plenty of evidence on the prevalence of low back among soldiers from developing countries (information which can be applied to Saudi Arabia). It has to be made clear why such data are not applicable to Saudi Arabian soldiers. Novelty and originality concerns will be answered if such concerns are tackled.
3.	The authors should also highlight the contextual background underpinning the conduction of the study in Saudi Arabia. What prompted the authors to want to do this study in Saudi Arabia? What local problem identified or observed which justifies this study?
4.	The authors are encouraged to put some statements on how studying the prevalence and the preselected associated factors of NSLBP would significantly assist with policy, clinical practice, medical, rehabilitation management, and prevention of NSLBP, etc in Saudi Arabia. In other words, provide a hint of the significance of this study in the Saudi Arabia context and the implications of currently not knowing such data in that country

Methods
1.	The method section should provide substantially more detail about your research setting,  data collection procedures. Ideally, there should be a clear and logical step-by-step description of your study procedures.
2. Put your research setting in context for other authors from the rest of the world to appreciate the setting. Why was the setting used????
3. Were all participants are screened for inclusion criteria????
4. How many participants were invited to participate in the study through pamphlets, email, and advertisements across the offices and residential areas.
5.Justify the selection of LBP definition used in the study? Why at least 12 weeks??? What about pain intensity???
6. "Participants who were currently suffering from non-specific low back pain were eligible to participate in the study" Please justify why "currently suffering"
7.Who did the physical examinations helping with LBP diagnosis? What were they examining? Be very specific
8. Attach the English version of the questionnaire
9.Justify the selection of the tool for assessment of QoL
10. Please comment on the following
Sample size considerations??
Target population
Sampling strategy
Justification of the instruments [psychometric properties of the tools]
Procedure missing
Statistical analysis plan missing

Results

Consider putting the Response rate
Consider the use of the flow diagram
Provide sociodemographic details of the participants/baseline information of the participants
Define this region [pain originating from the lumbosacral region]   in relation  LBP region??? how different is it from the low back region
Very low prevalence of NSLBP. This questions the contextual justification for the study
Justify the use of Spearman's rank-order correlation


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 NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW-BACK PAIN AND RISK FACTORS AMONG MALE SOLDIERS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Grammar is much improved but does need some final work. No other concerns
Experimental design: No concerns
Validity of the findings: There are also a few areas that need clarification when being compared to wider literature that is not clear and may be misrepresenting the results:

Lines 233-236: This is not clear. How is the NSCLBP of your study supported by Ernat et al., (2012) whose study was on LBP? There were even notable differences in numbers reporting LBP and NSCLBP in this study – 46.3% versus 2.7% so how your study related to that of Ernat et al., (2012) is not clear.

Lines 260-261: This is not clear. How does your study relate to Nahin (2017) given that you are reporting NSCLBP as opposed to LBP as per their study (noting above limitations). Furthermore, the age group in your study 31-40, which also falls into the bracket by Nahin, (2017) of 18-70, was 27%? So I am unsure why the comparison of your age group 41-50 (66%) is more valid to compare to 18-70 year olds (Nahin, 2017) and be considered similar while the 31-40 age group (27%) is not?
Additional comments: Thank you for the opportunity to again review the study titled: Prevalence of non-specific chronic low-back pain and associated risk factors among male soldiers in Saudi Arabia. The paper is much improved.

General Comments:
Some general errors and inconsistencies can be addressed throughout the paper:
•	Terminology: Please select either ‘subjects’ or ‘participants’ (see Line 110 for an example where both are used)
•	There are inconsistencies in Capitalisation (e.g. WHO five Well-being - Line 130; Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5) - Line 145 and Who five Well-being Index - Line 149).
•	Change all ‘Date was..’ to ‘Data were…’ (Data is plural, datum is singular) – See examples, Line 156, 237, 284, etc
•	Be consisted with acronyms eg., Line 84 – NSLBP, Line 168 – NSCLBP, Line 170 – CNSLBP
•	Please state ‘who’ for sentences starting with ‘ A study conducted…’ E.g.
•	Please add a citation after sentences that start with terms like ‘The study… ‘  E.g. Line 213, 218, 222, 226, 233…etc
•	When using the term ‘they’ please clarify who ‘they’ are. E.g., Line 229, 236, 245, etc

Specific Comments:
ABSTRACT
Line 33: ‘…referral from the other department…’ Please clarify what ‘other department?’ and ‘other’ in relation to which original department?
Line 39:  Recommend rewording to: ‘All eligible participants were assessed for demographic variables and associated risk factors and complete the Rolland Morris Disability Questionnaire and WHO-Five Well-Being Index.’
NOTE: There is no need to introduce the (RMDQ) acronym here as it is not used again in the ABSTRACT
Line 41: Recommend rewording to: ‘Results: This study identified a 46.3% prevalence of pain…’
Lines 43-45: My thoughts only: It may increase flow to reorder the factors associated with NSCLBP but strength of relationship. It allows the reader to easily identify those with the strongest and weakest relationships.
Line 46: Please add the word ‘male’ between ‘among’ and ‘Saudi’

INTRODUCTION
Lines 61 and 63: Please replace ‘are’ with ‘include’ (e.g., ‘Individual factors include the sedentary….’)
Line 79: Please add the word ‘strategies’ after ‘prevention’
Line 81: Recommend rewording to: ‘Conversely, untreated NSCLBP might lead to…’
Line 84: Recommend rewording to: ‘…treating NSCLBP as soon as possible to onset would significantly…’
Line 85: Remove sentence relating to no research conducted in ME. This is made clear and is well positioned Lines 88-89
Line 90-91: Remove sentence relating to prevalence studies as it distracts from the flow (i.e., no research so this is the aim of our research). If you think it is important to include perhaps place it at the start of Line 86.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Line 100: Recommend rewording to: ‘However, a military base in Jeddah province, Saudi Arabia, are recruiting female soldiers, but that research will not form part of this study.’
There is no mention of the ‘referral from the other department’ (Line 33) in the methods.
Line 105: Recommend rewording to: ‘…soldiers reporting with LBP…’
Line 107: Recommend rewording to: ‘…which lasted for at least…’
Line 108: Recommend removing ‘…and is reported to affect health and wellbeing…’ as it is not relevant to your classification and is a distraction
Line 111-112: Correct to either ‘Physical Therapist’ or ‘physical therapist’
Line 115: Recommend rewording to: ‘…radiographic imaging…’
Line 117: Recommend rewording to: ‘…with a prolapsed inter-vertebral…’
Lines 124-127: Recommend rewording to: ‘…demographic data such as age, weight, height, years of service and interview for role in the military and history of smoking. Medical records were..…’
Line 128: Correct reference (World Health Organization, 2000)
Line 136: ‘…with the English version…’
Line 147: Recommend rewording to: ‘…The score was multiplied…’
Line 151: Remove ‘The’ before ‘Physical activity….’

RESULTS:
Line 165 and 167. – Remove Line 165 and include it into Line 167..e.g., ‘Out of 62,000 personnel contacted for the survey, 8,706 (46.3%) reported with LBP and of these 1,687 (2.7%) reported with NSCLBP…’
Line 147: Recommend rewording to: ‘… (22.8%) or severe intensity NSCLBP…’
Line 174: Recommend rewording to ‘…as compared to the older age group…’
Line 179: Add ‘and’ after ‘(n=216, 54.5%)’ and ‘engaged’
Line 180: Remove n= (typically only used in brackets)
Line 188: Remove extra punctuation
Lines 202-205: Sentence does not make sense – please reword
Lines 233-236.: This is not clear. How is the NSCLBP of your study supported by Ernat et al., (2012) whose study was on LBP? There were even notable differences in numbers reporting LBP and NSCLBP in this study – 46.3% versus 2.7% so how your study related to that of Ernat et al., (2012) is not clear.
Lines 260-261: This is not clear. How does your study relate to Nahin (2017) given that you are reporting NSCLBP as opposed to LBP as per their study (noting above limitations). Furthermore, the age group in your study 31-40, which also falls into the bracket by Nahin, (2017) of 18-70, was 27%? So I am unsure why the comparison of your age group 41-50 (66%) is more valid to compare to 18-70 year olds (Nahin, 2017) and be considered similar while the 31-40 age group (27%) is not?
Line 272-273: Please clarify who the ‘they’ are and  if you mean ‘…The high number of Corporal-ranked officers reporting LBP could be because other ranked officers were engaged in sedentary…?
Lines 275-277: Risk of what. Please expand
Lines 282: Please change ‘corona’ to ‘Novel Coronavirus’ as defined by the WHO and is listed in the ICD.

CONCLUSIONS:
Consideration: I think it would be worthwhile to include the use of this data to inform risk management strategies, like the smoking reduction one mentioned earlier in your article (Lines 247-248).

REFERENCES:
Please correct reference LINE 396 Should be World Health Organization.


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 NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW-BACK PAIN AND RISK FACTORS AMONG MALE SOLDIERS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: There are few instances in need of professional editing. See attached manuscript for areas in need of corrections. Check your grammar, use of comma and spellings, and use of correct abbreviations.

So many sentences requiring referencing in the manuscript. Kindly see the attached document. For example, the following sentences in the background section require referencing at the end.
"More than half of the general population seeks medical advice for LBP at some point in their lives"
"Back pain without any known cause for 12-weeks is termed non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP)"
"The medical cost involved in the management of NSCLBP is relatively lower than the more severe form of LBP".
 "Therefore, identifying and treating NSLBP at the earliest would significantly reduce the medical cost and absenteeism from work"

The authors should attach the English low back pain questionnaire as a supplementary or additional file and evidence of pilot study and pre-testing of the instrument should also be mentioned and highlighted in the manuscript. This is in light of the very low prevalence rate of NSCLBP reported in the study. Instrument development was not mentioned in the study methods section as well.

The main issue with the background as highlighted in my first review is the lack of a comprehensive theoretical and contextual background underpinning the conduction of the study. Following the author's corrections, still, that aspect is not very clear from the background. For example, the authors mentioned that "Several risk factors have been reported to be associated with NSCLBP among soldiers" and they went on to give us the risk factors based on the results from a study by Simula et al., 2019. So if we know this, why are repeating this study, investigating again the associated factors? What makes the soldiers in Saudi Arabia unique from the rest of the soldiers from other countries like Sweden, China, USA, Canada, Brazil??? Why can’t we extrapolate from the findings from these previous studies and apply them in Saudi Arabia?  In addition, given the fact we know already that soldiers are predisposed to low back pain by nature of their military training (Chan et al., 2019; (Monnier et al., 2015; Vun et al., 2018; Cardoso et al., 2018; Hou et al., 2013; Ernat et al., 2012), what contextual evidence exists in Saudi Arabia especially at the military base the study was conducted on that justifies the need for this study. This tackles originality and novelty issues and advances new information rather than plain replication of what other authors have already established previously and just changing the setting. Meaningful replication is encouraged where the authors uniquely specify the contextual problem, how it was identified, local consequences of the problem unabated and the significance of addressing that local problem.

The authors are strongly reminded that "To the best of our knowledge, no research is published about NSCLBP and its associated risk factors in the Saudi military population" is not a strong justification or problem statement warranting the conduction of research.
They ought to highlight to the global audience, what they observed as a problem in Saudi soldiers, the impact of the problem, and how this study will address some of the challenges posed by the problem.
Experimental design: "Only male soldiers were enrolled in this study using a convenient sampling method" Based on this, justify why only male soldiers were enrolled and with such a huge sampling frame wy convenience sampling was used? Discuss the limitations of that sampling strategy as well as the generalisability of the results.

Be very clear whether your n=62 000 reflect the number of male soldiers only at Hafar Al-Baten, or represents the entire population of soldiers at the military base.

Comment about the inter-rater reliability of the 4 PTs who conducted the physical examinations. In addition, it's not clear what they actually did as part of the physical examination. This sentence is confusing given the fact that they examined for LBP ". The physical examination included motor, sensory, and reflex examination of the upper limb and lower limb"

"The primary outcome of the study was the prevalence of NSCLBP among military personnel in Saudi Arabia. Assuming a 95% confidence level, with an expected prevalence between 53.2% to 79.17% LBP based on an earlier study (Awaji, 2016) with 0.05 absolute precision, the required sample size was between 255 to 382 military personnel. However, the questionnaire was distributed to the military population at the military base comprising 620000 military personnel"
Why distribute the questionnaire to 62 0000 when you only needed a maximum of 382 soldiers??

Include a statement on how the low back pain questionnaire was developed, translated, and validated

Attach the low back pain questionnaire for the readers to see how the screening question for NSCLBP was asked. What was the specific question screening for chronic low back pain asked in the questionnaire?

Write RMDQ in full first time

"The Arabic version of PSQI demonstrated good reliability, (Cronbach α = 0.77)  acceptable internal consistency, (Cronbach α = 0.65) and moderate to a high correlation between global PSQI and five components of PSQI scores" Check the correctness of this sentence

"The physical activity level was categorized into four levels based on participation in military drills" Categorized by who?????????

"The ordinal scale data were analyzed using Spearman rank-order analysis" This sentence is incomplete and incomprehensible

 "A total of n= 8706 responded with back pain with a 46.3% response rate" Please check this sentence in relation to what you wrote under results

"Out of 1678 participants, 617 (74.5%) had mild; 679 (40.5%) moderate; 382 (22.8%) sever intensity  of the CNSLBP" Please check your spellings here and consistent use of abbreviations here

Was there an association between age and pain severity???

What about the relationship between age and prevalence of NSCLBP?? Was the prevalence increasing with the increasing age category statistically speaking??

Was there an association between BMI and pain severity??????

Was there an association between level of physical activity and pain severity???
Validity of the findings: "The low prevalence of NSCLBP in this study could be due to stringent inclusion criteria". Explain how the stringent inclusion criteria accounted for the low prevalence of NSCLBP?

Avoid repeating results in the discussion section.
Additional comments: Thank you for the opportunity to re-review the manuscript.

The manuscript still requires some significant revisions on the background, methods, and discussion section.

I have attached a document with some track changes with more 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 NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW-BACK PAIN AND RISK FACTORS AMONG MALE SOLDIERS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Review round: 4
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No concerns
Experimental design: No concerns
Validity of the findings: No concerns
Additional comments: The paper is much improved however there are still some minor areas that need addressing, mostly grammatical in nature

General Feedback:
•	Check punctuation. Often punctuation errors are hard to identify with all the track changes. By selecting ‘no markup’ in the review menu this can be rectified. Examples include: Lines 50, 124, 139, 210, 235, 248, 311.
•	The WHO outcome measure is still presented inconsistently throughout. Please select only one term for the outcome measure. Examples include: Line 41 versus 156 versus 184 versus 302 versus 318.
•	Remove all instances of ‘n=’ in text unless within brackets (e.g. Line 203 should be ‘Out of 404 active smokers’ while line 205 is correct with ‘…such as diabetes (n=141,8.4%)).

Specific Feedback
Line 33. The use of ‘other’ is confusing. Suggest rephrasing to ‘ …from in-patient and out-patient departments of the military hospital…’
Line 43: Add ‘s’ after correlation as you are conducting more than one (e.g., with age, quality of sleep, etc).
Line 75-76. Grammar needs correction. Suggest ‘ …due to their high physical demands of their profession. Active military personnel usually carry heavy equipment during training which can lead to over-stressing of their musculoskeletal system, especially the spine.’
Line 78: Add ‘the’. ‘…among the general public…’
Line 81: Please rephrase, I do not understand this sentence.
Line 93: The Acronym SA is introduced without preamble (i.e., Saudi Arabia (SA)) and then not consistently used (e.g. Line 96). I suggest removing all SA use.
Line 97: Suggest rephrasing to ‘…73.9% of health care workers reported suffering from LBP…’
Line 100: Grammar and wording. Suggest correcting and rephrasing to ‘Military personnel are at a greater risk of developing LBP due to…’
Line 102: Clarity. Please remove the term ‘militia’ as this is different to ‘military’. A militia is typically an Army of trained civilians.
Line 109. The term ‘analytical’ can be removed as most research studies include analysis and this is made clear in your methods.
Line 50: Grammar: Correct to ‘interviewed’
Line 151: Grammar: Remove ‘The’ before BMI.
Line 171: Grammar: Remove ‘The’ before ‘Quality of life…’
Line 172: Grammar: Change ‘the’ to ‘their’

Line 174: Grammar: Change ‘100 stand’ to ‘100 stands’
Line 191: Grammar add ‘the’ before ‘spine’.
Line 193: Move the standard deviation before the SI unit ‘years’
Line 194: Grammar: Consider changing to ‘ …had mild, 679 (40.5%) moderate, or 382 (22.8%) severe intensities of NSCLBP.’
Line 201: Remove ‘the’ before ‘Further analysis’
Line 205: Grammar. Add ‘a’ before ‘co-morbidity’.
Lines 205-210: Add commas after list items (e.g., diabetes (n=141, 8.4%), hypertension…’
Lines 208-210: Please rephrase. I do not understand this sentence.
Line 216: Grammar: ‘correlations’
Lines 217-218. Grammar: Please add ‘An’ before ‘ordinal regression…’ and add a ‘s’ after ‘relationship’ and ‘variable’.
Line 226. Grammar: Remove ‘are’ before less.
Line 235: Grammar: ‘reported a prevalence of’
Line 240: Remove ‘(‘ before Monnier et al.
Lines 243, 247, 252: Please add the year after the authors (e.g., Vun et al., (2018)…)
Line 243: Please change ‘armed’ to ‘Army’: An armed force and an Army are two different populations.
Line 258-259: Please consider rephrasing to ‘ in the USA reporting acute back pain noted that the soldiers seldom…’
Line 273: Grammar: Consider ‘…health of younger military recruits…’
Line 280: Grammar: Consider ‘…significant improvements in their quality of life…’
Line 284: Suggest rephrasing to ‘…a lack of significance…’
Lines 290-291: Please rephrase. Sentence is not very clear.
Lines 298-299: Consider rephrasing to ‘…a higher number of Corporals reported mild back pain disability when compared to other ranked officers.’
Line 310: Please add ‘s’ to ‘limit’.
Lines 317: Grammar. Consider rephrasing to ‘Strong associations were found between back pain disability and age group, role in military,…’
Line 468: Swain reference. Please confirm that (xxxx) is correct.


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 NON-SPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW-BACK PAIN AND RISK FACTORS AMONG MALE SOLDIERS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Review round: 4
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Greater improvement in basic reporting. No further comments on this.
Experimental design: Line 115 should be deleted which reads "However, a military base in Jeddah province, Saudi Arabia, are recruiting female soldiers, however that research will not form part of this study" This statement is not adding value.

Sub-heading "study design" should be "study design, participants and research setting"

The primary outcome of the study was the prevalence of NSCLBP among military personnel in Saudi Arabia BUT the screening question for the identification of the participants with NSCLBP was not very clear from the low back pain study questionnaire. Please clarify. The Nordic questionnaire attached cannot be used to identify patients with chronic NSLBP for 12 weeks since it elicited LBP information about the last 12 months and 7 days.

As a limitation, your adopted definition of NSCLBP only considered "duration" as the only physiological characteristic or parameter and ignored important pain elements such as frequency of episodes, intensity, severity, and remission period. See definition by Stanton et al., 2010.
Validity of the findings: "Soldiers reporting with LBP were screened for inclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria included pain or discomfort originating from the lumbosacral region without any known cause, which lasted for at least 12 weeks, without any radiating or specific spinal diseases. The persistence of NSCLBP for 12 weeks is considered chronic (Hallegraeff et al., 2012).. Participants who were currently suffering from NSCLBP were eligible to participate in the study"

Based on the sentences above, the authors need to clarify whether they only included participants "who had an episode of NSCLBP" at the time of the study and excluded all the others without. How then do you assess the associated factors if you exclude participants without NSCLBP?
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: EXTRACELLULAR PH, OSMOLARITY, TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY COULD DISCOURAGE SARS-COV-2 CELL DOCKING AND PROPAGATION VIA INTERCELLULAR SIGNALING PATHWAYS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The literature review article titled Extracellular pH, osmolarity, temperature and humidity can discourage SARS-CoV-2 cell docking and propagation via intercellular signaling pathways (#61344) by Cicconetti et al., describes 3-4 factors such as extracellular pH, temperature, humidity and osmolarity in different circumstances and drawn parallels to the SARS-CoV-2 disease progression and control.

Overall, the review article is well written on the chosen topics and the authors has made a sincere effort in finding the relevant literature. The review has scope and relevance in the current pandemic scenario and would benefit clinicians and scientists to explore other means of interventions. The review article is also with in the scope of the journal and this topic has not been reviewed as far as my knowledge is concerned. However, I have the below comments and concerns regarding the article.
Experimental design: The study design i.e., survey methodology is clearly demonstrating the outline of the review.

There are certain areas where more references are required which has been mentioned in the comments.

Overall the review is well organized. A few suggestions of various other related topics such as other Alkalinizing agents, other ssRNA virus and model figure showcasing the various factors regulated by sodium bicarbonate were made in the comments.

As a reviewer from a reader point of view the below comments were made to improve this review article.
Validity of the findings: Few conclusions were not supported by experimental works which need to be addressed by the authors. The future directions and conclusions are satisfactory in general.
Additional comments: Minor and Major changes suggested:
1.	Line 32: Please change Countries to countries.
2.	Line 33-34: Why only few countries are mentioned in the 4.5% of world population that has received vaccination? Rationale for the same.
3.	A table representing the % vaccinated in various countries would be useful for the reader to understand how well the vaccination campaign has reached geographically
4.	Line 33 and 67: Change 4,5% to 4.5%
5.	Line 47-49: “A cheap…” sentence is not in line with the text flow. Please move it out from abstract so that the text flow is in line with the previous sentences
6.	Line 45 and throughout the manuscript text: Please change “Signalling” to “Signaling”
7.	Line 50: Please modify to “Virus originating from a rapid increase”
8.	Line 69: The authors have mentioned “Like all vaccines”- please mention a few which are 100% effective and provide citations
9.	Line70: How can the authors state that “covid-19 vaccines will not be 100% effective”. Please modify and provide references of the same.
10.	Line 75: The authors has cited an unpublished article that is currently in MedRxiv. How can this conclusion be verified? Please provide a valid citation or mentioned unpublished results.
11.	Line 77: “Initial data”: What is this data? please cite a reference to which study you have referred here.
12.	Line 79: S protein: Elaborate on the first appearance of the text. It is written in line 80.
13.	Line 89: Please change to “The need for an approach” and “economical”
14.	Line 90: Please change to “Behavior”
15.	Line 100: The authors has stated “Based on clear experimental published data” where is it published? No citation? And no data reference in the text. Please add
16.	Line 114-116: Discuss the clinical study data briefly on the outcomes (statistics, % improvement etc)
17.	Lines 142-143: References? “By an appropriate acidic pH” what is this pH value?
18.	Line 148-149: References?
19.	Line 150: Change to “needs low pH”
20.	Line 156: Reference for CoV-2 uses ACE2 receptor
21.	Line 164: Change to “Human virus infections, including”
22.	Line 166: Change to “host cell;”
23.	Line 219: Change to “quantities”
24.	Line 229 and 231: References?
25.	Line 234-237: Reference?
26.	It would be interesting to the readers if the authors include details regarding other alkalinizing agents that are currently in medical use and their implication on SARS-CoV-2? A table representing the same would be helpful or few sentences. Also, what are the advantages of SB over other agents.
27.	 As the authors has mentioned few factors like temperature, epH etc that influence the CoV-2 infections, a model figure illustrating the same and their regulation would be helpful to easily understand the benefits.
28.	Line 254, 255: Please change to “Defense”
29.	The SARS-CoV-2 is a positive sense-ssRNA virus. It would be nice if the authors could look in literature about the affect of these factors (pH, temp..) on other Positive sense-ssRNA viruses and draw parallels to the SARS-CoV-2
30.	Line 271: Elaborate “MAVS protein” in its first appearance in the text
31.	Line 278: Change to “targets”
32.	Line 288-291: The authors has drawn conclusions for the warm SB applicability but there are no experimental study data of its application in SARS-CoV-2. They have discussed SB role in various other circumstances but not directly to SARS-CoV-2. Please modify the sentence so that it remains as a hypothesis which needs to be investigated in clinical trials.
33.	Line 288-291: Also, it would be useful if the authors can shed some light on how SB can be administrated, dosage, how to warm it and the possible side effects (any references of the same)
34.	Line 299: Please change to “becomes”
35.	Line 307: Please change to “Defense”
36.	Line 311: Please change to “favorable”
37.	Line 329-331: Please provide an exact link to the covid action platform-where the argument is in line with the proposal
38.	Line 334: The authors has not mentioned that warm SB inhalation can be a preventive measure. Rather they have discussed it in terms of control of the virus propagation after infection. Please modify the sentence
39.	Line 342: There is no clinical trial or experimental data is shown/cited regarding direct application of SB in Sars-CoV-2 but then how can the authors state that it is an underrated and underappreciated option, please modify the sentence.


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: EXTRACELLULAR PH, OSMOLARITY, TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY COULD DISCOURAGE SARS-COV-2 CELL DOCKING AND PROPAGATION VIA INTERCELLULAR SIGNALING PATHWAYS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Clear and unambiguous, professional English used throughout.

No, the article is not written in professional English. Some examples: line 86; lines 128-135 etc.

Is the review of broad and cross-disciplinary interest and within the scope of the journal?

Yes, the review is of broad and cross-disciplinary interest as focuses on different biochemical properties that may be important for SARS-CoV-2 and most other human viruses for cell entry.

Has the field been reviewed recently? If so, is there a good reason for this review (different point of view, accessible to a different audience, etc.)?

Yes, a recent publication reviewed recently a possibility of adjusting extracellular pH to prevent entry of SARS-CoV-2 into human cells.

Bin Wang. Adjusting extracellular pH to prevent entry of SARS-CoV-2 into human cells. Genome. 64(6): 595-598. https://doi.org/10.1139/gen-2020-0167

Current review by Cicconetti et al. doesn’t provide a different point of view. Also, the review fails to provide sufficient evidence on benefit and safety of the proposed methods, as such methods have not been shown to be effective against any other viral infection that depend on pH, temperature and osmolarity for infection.

Does the Introduction adequately introduce the subject and make it clear who the audience is/what the motivation is?

No, the authors do not provide sufficient background on the field including available vaccines and therapies available against SARS-CoV-2.
Experimental design: Is the Survey Methodology consistent with a comprehensive, unbiased coverage of the subject? If not, what is missing?

Survey Methodology needs to be revised as the language is not scientifically sound. Also, not sufficient literature review has been done in the field to propose inhalation of warm sodium bicarbonate for treating COVID-19.  Animal studies showing efficacy of pH modulation or real-world data need to be included in the article as well as safety studies on inhaling sodium bicarbonate need to be discussed

Are sources adequately cited? Quoted or paraphrased as appropriate?
Is the review organized logically into coherent paragraphs/subsections?

No comment
Validity of the findings: Is there a well developed and supported argument that meets the goals set out in the Introduction?

No, the authors missing important aspects in the review, such as animal studies and real-world data that would point towards efficacy and safety of inhaling warm sodium bicarbonate for treating any other viral infection. Suggesting to perform “sodium inhalation in a domiciliary care setting” without enough evidence on safety and efficacy could lead to more harm than potential benefit of treating COVID-19.

Does the Conclusion identify unresolved questions / gaps / future directions?

No, based on the data available on the role of pH, temperature, osmosis and humidity for COVID-19 infection, the authors should suggest what additional studies/ gaps exist  to prove that in fact modulating these cellular biochemical properties would be efficacious and safe against COVID-19 in vivo. The review doesn’t discuss any studies that need to be done and jump towards a conclusion that inhalation of warm sodium bicarbonate may help treating COVID-19 infection
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: EXTRACELLULAR PH, OSMOLARITY, TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY COULD DISCOURAGE SARS-COV-2 CELL DOCKING AND PROPAGATION VIA INTERCELLULAR SIGNALING PATHWAYS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: In the review article titled ‘Extracellular pH, osmolarity, temperature and humidity can discourage SARS-CoV-2 cell docking and propagation via intercellular signaling pathways’ Cicconetti et. al. discuss various factors such as extracellular pH, osmolarity, temperature and humidity on SARS-CoV-2 cell docking and propagation, and propose warm inhalation with sodium bicarbonate as one of the therapeutic modalities in COVID19 treatment regimen.
Although very informative, the review needs serious editing and restructuring to meet PeerJ’s scientific publication standards.
Experimental design: NA
Validity of the findings: -	The review is highly and unscientifically biased towards warm inhalation with sodium bicarbonate. Several key details are needed here to make this a nice review article: for example: what are other alternative approaches that are cost-effective, efficient, generally accessible in the fight against COVID19? After a brief review of these approaches, discuss how warm inhalation with SB compares to such alternative approaches.
-	Authors do not provide any details regarding SB warm inhalation approach. This is a critical weakness as not all readers are aware of what SB warm inhalation methodology is.
-	Authors do not provide any details regarding the current practices associated with SB warm inhalation: what is the recommended duration and frequency? What temperature? What concentration?
-	Authors do not provide any details regarding whether SB warm inhalations are suggested/recommended as COVID19 preventative measure or treatment measure? Who should use it? Who should not use it?
-	Authors do not discuss the limitations/disadvantages and risks associated with SB inhalation
-	What are other alternatives for warm inhalations other than SB?
-	Another serious scientific flaw is that with confusing sentence structures it appears that authors comparing SB inhalation to highly regulated and thoroughly tested scientific measures such as vaccination. See this sentence for example: “Thus, it might represent an additional armamentarium together with vaccination, drug repurposing, social distancing to combat this crisis that is, and remains, critical despite the enormous resources and actions already in place.”
Additional comments: Abstract: the authors provide way too much, and not directly relevant statistics related to vaccination. Please rewrite to remove all details not directly relevant to the focus of this review. Summarize ‘big picture’ scenario in no more than 1 paragraph. Include other missing, relevant and important details as highlighted previously.

Assuming that readers will refer to this review in the future; avoid phrases such as currently affecting the world. Write specific such as months and year.
“The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is currently afflicting the world population.”

Line 58: type: ‘states’?
COVID-19 infection often leads to severe acute respiratory states.

Line 62-66: Vaccination drive is clearly not the focus of this review article. Unnecessary expansion on vaccination drive here. Delete or summarize briefly.
Stick to scientific facts and avoid subjective opinions

Line 67: As of May 15th  Year is missing here, include year

Line 87-90: the wording is just off here, making the entire segment very confusing for readers.
‘may yield considerable health risk’ > does not make sense.

Line 96-97: “One of the possible approaches to modulate airway environment is the warm inhalation with sodium bicarbonate (SB)” before delving directly into warm inhalation with SB, list and discuss strengths and weaknesses associated with other approaches.

Line 138-139: Several important scientific considerations are missing here:
External pH affects several additional molecular structures such as: the fluidity of  the lipid bilayer, cell shape and size, expression of membrane proteins.
Furthermore, the effects of intracellular pH are also different depending on whether the cell wall is present. Thus external pH affects mammalian cells, bacteria, viruses differently, and certainly influences microenvironment.

Line 141-142: Summarize key findings from the cited papers here (as opposed to just saying epH affect virus infection) Affects how? What type of viruses? What are the effect?

Line 160-163: No novel points are mentioned here. To make it a good review, list a few key points we need to understand to be able to develop better and more effective drugs.

Line 164-165: is there typographic errors here? The sentence doesn’t make sense.

In general: define terms at first use before abbreviating them: for example ‘IFN’
309-312:
Provide specifics. What data has been published about changes in humidity and osmolarity following SB inhalation? What durations and frequency are needed to see favorable results. If the duration and effect are not going to be physiologically relevant - there is not much strong logic in recommending SB inhalation as a measure.

Conclusion:
Who might SB inhalations be beneficial for? Is the preventative measure or a treatment option?
Dangers and limitations associated with this method?

Line 334-335: authors must not irrationally compare SB inhalations to vaccinations without significant details and analyses

How is virus progression associated with escalation of symptoms and how would SB inhalations help at different stages?

Include two figures:
1.	A figure demonstrating SB inhalation
2.	Add another figure outlining infections and progression of COVID19 and highlight steps where inhalation therapy helps


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: PREDICTION OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE IN RURAL CHINESE ADULTS: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: it is a very well written and focused article on a ver unique and necessary topic to address human health and urban design. the manuscript needs to update the references list on recent studies
Experimental design: very clear and well organised , just reproducibilities of data and resolution needs more elaboration
Validity of the findings: No comments
Additional comments: The paper carries interesting and important topic that is neglected in modern urbanisation. I suggest authors update their reference list based on recent studies and present the data based on each method separately to have a clear discussion


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: PREDICTION OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE IN RURAL CHINESE ADULTS: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The study is a welcome addition to the clinical cardiovascular literature in to address an important notion of rural geographical areas vs urban areas as published in the US, UK etc.

The Chinese researchers have done excellent job from the ML technical demonstration, etc. However I feel that is a jewel hidden under ground due to the lack of clinical interpretation of this work from a practicing cardiologist standpoint.

For example, I would like to know more clearly how the CHD prediction differs in rural areas from those in urban areas. What are the important parameters or model features which would help the practicing cardiologist or provider in treating their. You are leaving me to guess this out. I would like to see this clearly stated and debated.

I feel that the discussion section is very weak with the above in mind. Remember that you are building a predictive mode in a clinical area so that I can use it in my practice.

The paper in its current format is not really providing the clarity which would allow to benefit scientifically from this rich data set.
Experimental design: Everything looks fine. Perhaps your paper may benefit from decision curve analysis so that I can get a pure estimate of true positives after discounting for the false positive.
Validity of the findings: I am not able to assess the findings in the current paper format due to the non rigor of discussion of current findings in the rural geographical areas relative to urban areas etc.
Additional comments: This is a good piece of work. But I feel that not enough work has been into this work to extract the clinical insights from a cardiologist or provider standpoint. A more elaborate treatment of the subject is highly recommended to bring clarity to the manuscript so that the reader would benefit from this rich data set.


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: PREDICTION OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE IN RURAL CHINESE ADULTS: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: The work improved but the discussion section has lack of citations and critical thinking
Experimental design: well established
Validity of the findings: the impact of work can bring new knowledge to healthcare practitioners however the conclusion is too brief and needs to present how the study objectives were obtained and important to the nature of work
Additional comments: In General the work quality improved but I am concerned about discussion 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: PREDICTION OF CORONARY HEART DISEASE IN RURAL CHINESE ADULTS: A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: Comments to Editor/Authors:

The authors have made a serious attempt to improve the manuscript. However I would like to see the following changes to be made prior to final publication:

1.	In my prior comment, I meant to compare the findings from the Chinese rural areas to the Western Urban areas. Please elaborate on this point as you are in a very good position to make a significant contribution about informing us about the risk factors leading to the differences in CHD morbidity between the Chinese and Western countries (e.g., UK/US).
2.	You have talked about preventative efforts for CHD, can you please consider discussing the impactful variables from your model features which allow the treating physician to achieve positive intervention effects with the patient.
3.	Please add a statement about the clinical insights of the study in the abstract.
4.	This comment is outside my expertise. The authors are reporting an ROC =1 for training data. I do not believe that this is possible. You cannot build a perfect model even from a cross sectional cohort. There must be something wrong. Please investigate.
Experimental design: Nothing to report
Validity of the findings: Comments to Editor/Authors:

The authors have made a serious attempt to improve the manuscript. However I would like to see the following changes to be made prior to final publication:

1.	In my prior comment, I meant to compare the findings from the Chinese rural areas to the Western Urban areas. Please elaborate on this point as you are in a very good position to make a significant contribution about informing us about the risk factors leading to the differences in CHD morbidity between the Chinese and Western countries (e.g., UK/US).
2.	You have talked about preventative efforts for CHD, can you please consider discussing the impactful variables from your model features which allow the treating physician to achieve positive intervention effects with the patient.
3.	Please add a statement about the clinical insights of the study in the abstract.
4.	This comment is outside my expertise. The authors are reporting an ROC =1 for training data. I do not believe that this is possible. You cannot build a perfect model even from a cross sectional cohort. There must be something wrong. Please investigate.
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: EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE LOAD IN TEAM SPORTS: LITERATURE REVIEW
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: No comment
Experimental design: The review was well done, although it is necessary to clarify one point. Please watch my suggestions in general comments.
Validity of the findings: This point is developed in the general comments.
Additional comments: The keys to achieving the best sports training programme are complex because there are a lot of different variables involved. One of them is cognition which, again, involved other variables, but lately is gaining attention in both researchers and coaches because it has been observed that have an important influence on the performance of the athletes. In this regard, the authors did a literature review exploring how these cognitive variables were assessed, and what results were observed. I would like to congratulate them for the good work you have done in the manuscript. However, there are several aspects that need to improve to consider for publication. Below there is a list of suggestions that I believe would improve the paper's quality.
•	Introduction: One of the points that this review could be of interest to the experts of the field is that the results of this research line are rather incongruent, and that is mainly because of the difficulty to control the variables. This incongruence produces confusion between those experts, and reviews like this should help to clarify the possible effects. I believe that this information should be added in a new paragraph
•	Criteria exclusion: I noted that the authors excluded laboratory studies which, indeed, I believe is a good decision because it is far from real environments. However, these laboratory studies have been taken into account in this research line because of their capacity to control the variables. Certainly, one of the problems in the practical researches is that some results are incongruent, and one of the possible reasons is the lack of control of some variables. Did the authors consider the level of control of the variables? If so, please include it in the next version of the manuscript.
•	I do not understand line 151. The following scale was only applied after the session? Then, why NASA was not included here? Or did NASA was applied before and after the session? Same case in line 175… My apologies. After reading it carefully, now I understand that it is the final line of that variable in which the authors specify the period in which the variable was assessed. Perhaps it is better to write that information at the end of the paragraph, or at the beginning, and not in italics?
•	Line 355, please combine the brackets.


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: EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE LOAD IN TEAM SPORTS: LITERATURE REVIEW
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: General Comments:

The reviewer commends the authors on addressing such an important topic. As is stated in the introduction, cognitive load is known to influence physical performance, yet its existence is rarely, if ever, acknowledged when considering training load in sport. Further, I do not know of any literature which aims to address this issue.

That being said, there are several issues which detract from this important work in its current state. One general issue is that the outcomes of your literature search i.e., tools that  aim to assess cognitive load and 'indicators' of cognitive load are not discussed until the very end of the introduction and not elaborated on. As this forms the major part of your manuscript I suggest increasing the focus on this. Please see my further specific comments below.

Specific Comments:

Lines 36-37 -  It is unclear why change of direction and cognitive requirements are coupled together? Is change of direction not just as much a physical task as the jumps or accelerations mentioned above?

Line 37 – I suggest you either provide a reference for the statement ‘cognitive requirements and changes of direction are also identified….’ Or remove the words ‘identified as’

Lines 43-55 – I enjoyed this section. This paragraph is well written and speaks to the importance of this topic.

Line 53 – Define is not the correct term here. Something like ‘conclude’ would be more suitable.

Lines 56-57 – Is this how you are defining cognitive load for this review? If so, I suggest making this more explicit in this sentence.

Lines 60-62 – I agree with the authors on this point; however, it is unclear how this relates to cognitive load. This concept could be further explained.

Line 68-70 – This sentence is not clear. Please reword.

Line 81 – The term/concept of readiness is only introduced here. I suggest introducing earlier and explaining what you mean by this term.

Lines 86-89 – Reading to this point I was unsure what the aims of the review would be. Can these aims be introduced earlier or the earlier sections lead to the aims more explicitly? Further, it is not clear what is meant by an ‘indicator’. An explanation of this, and/or an example would increase clarity.
Experimental design: The methodology section requires more detail, as well as context or rationale, for a number of methodological decisions i.e.,

Line 93 - Why was the search limited to literature from 1970 onward?

Line 106 - Can you explain in a little more detail what is meant by 'management of cognitive, mental or psychological load'.

Line 112 - What is considered a 'real sport'

What was the screening process i.e., did one author screen all articles? Completed as a team?
Validity of the findings: The findings, although interesting and valid, need more context within the results/discussion. The broad array of studies included, i.e., different sports, different aims of studies etc make it difficult to follow and combine or compare the findings of the different studies. A greater description of the studies referenced is needed in text, not just in tables.

Further, the discussion largely describes the tools used to assess cognitive load. This is not particularly beneficial to the reader, rather a discussion of the pro's and con's of such measure might be more useful.

The discussion would also benefit from thorough proof reading and editing.

Lines 121-123 - As mentioned previously, an explanation of what is meant by an 'indicator' is required. As well as your classifications of indicators.

Lines 126-127 - This sentence needs more explanation and context.

Line 129 - I don't understand what is meant by 'analysis of indicators of response'.

Line 144 - Is this study a laboratory study? Laboratory studies were part of the exclusion criteria. There appears to be a number of lab studies included i.e., Smith (2016)

Line 153 - No need for the word scale. The S in VAS is scale.

Line 161 - Is bibliography the correct word here?

Lines 166-173 - This section does not really discuss the VAS, which is the subheading this section falls under.

Line 177 - Does CSAI stand for anything?

Line 184-188 - This section needs more explanation. E.g., what is meant by somatic and cognitive anxiety.

Line 192 - Spell out the full name for POMS at first use.

Line 203 - Change "In a study...". In what study?

Line 237 - Reference for this statement?

Line 244 - This full naming of SIATE needs to occur when this acronym is first used.

Line 285 - We or other authors?

Lines 294-295 - Physical fatigue could also increase reaction time.

Lines 297-301 - Here and elsewhere, these studies need describing. This information holds no value without greater explanation or context.

The conclusion brings in a lot of new information. A conclusion typically summarises the information stated previously. I would also suggest having the practical applications section, prior to the conclusion.
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: EVALUATION OF COGNITIVE LOAD IN TEAM SPORTS: LITERATURE REVIEW
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: In general notes, the quality of this new version of the manuscript has been greatly increased. Therefore, I congratulate the authors for their implication in performing the necessary changes. I appreciate that my suggestions have been taken into account.
Congratulations of your excellent work.
Experimental design: No commments
Validity of the findings: No commments
Additional comments: No commments


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: GENETIC EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM CAPTIVE BREEDING ON THE ENDANGERED PYGMY HOG
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: Authors presented novel genetic information from the captive breeding program of Pigmy hog. This study has sufficient data to draw conclusion.
Experimental design: Experimental design was enough for the study. However, data correction could have been performed as commented in details.
Validity of the findings: Though this study is reported with a high volume of data, some stretch could have been validated by resequencing.
Additional comments: The authors presented novel genetic information from the captive breeding program of the Pigmy hog.
A mixed approach was used in the genetic assessment. When authors have access to the NGS platform than the use of conventional cloning and Sanger sequencing could have been avoided for MHC heterozygosity. I do not disrespect the cloning and sanger sequencing in MHC heterozygosity assessment, but NGS is much easier (without cloning step) than the conventional (laborious cloning) method.
The mtDNA sequences provided in supplementary files are not properly aligned and contained a lot of ambiguous nucleotides. The complete mtDNA sequences are showing several needless gaps. Author may rectify the same and resubmit a final file.
The authors detected a total of eight haplotypes in mtDNA of which only three were from the founder individuals. It means five haplotypes were generated during the captive breeding program in such a short duration (over eight generations only), it is either an interesting observation or error due to low depth sequencing, which can further be rectified by resequencing only the variable stretch using Sanger sequencing method.
Your data indicates significant improvement of genetic diversity during captive breeding; however, it should have been negatively affected due to inbreeding, any possible explanation?
Conclusion sections have several citations. Phrases with citations may be sifted to the discussion section. The conclusion can be your own statements highlighting the findings without any citations.
I could not found any Supplementary method in the submission files.


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: GENETIC EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM CAPTIVE BREEDING ON THE ENDANGERED PYGMY HOG
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: The report is fairly clear, describing the genetic changes in a captive bred population of pigmy hogs. Some places where clarity could be improved are:

Line 80: When the text talks of no sign of inbreeding, does this mean no sign of inbreeding depression? The text talks of hyenas but the paper cited is about narwhals.

Lines 90-93: The listed possibilities are not all different. Balancing selection includes overdominance and negative frequency-dependent selection, and diversifying selection includes balancing selection.

One major result of the study is that the heterozygosity is significantly higher in all subsequent generations relative to the founders.  This is shown with t-tests. However, it might not be clear from Figure 1. This is because Figure 1 shows the mean H plus or minus the standard deviation, whereas standard errors are more usual in this context. A naïve reader, seeing the overlap in what they think are error bars, might doubt the significance of the increase from the founders to later generations.

Line 404-405: In the description of the chalk-hill blue, the causality might have been reversed in the description. It is said that populations with higher diversity have higher population sizes, as if the higher genetic diversity increases fitness which then increases population size. But it would be more straightforward to explain the high diversity as being caused (as expected) by higher population size.

In lines 441 and 442 it is said that the captive breeding programme has led to higher H and also to a lower pi for the MHC. But this doesn’t make sense. If variation has gone up genome-wide one would expect it to have increased in the MHC as well.

There is a correlation between male  fitness and genetic variation which goes in the unexpected direction, i.e. there is lower male fitness in the more variable animals (and this applies to both MHC and the sequence diversity in the RADseq). The biological causes of fitness variation is not entirely clear to me. It seems that the matings are controlled by the experimenters based on data including genetic variation (or at least pedigree inbreeding) in the animals. So is a high fitness male just one that has been chosen by the experimenters to be used for many crosses?

In lines 496-504 the discussion of outbreeding depression arising in a single population is rather confusing as outbreeding depression is normally defined as resulting from matings between populations. However, there is an implication in the text that the population is, in fact, subdivided, with locally-adapted subpopulations.

The conclusions in the conclusions section are all very sensible, and the recommendations are sound. However, none of these follow in any clear way from the results presented in the paper, which are somewhat mysterious and unexplained.
Experimental design: Line 264: Here for “lifetime breeding success” a logit link function is used in the generalized linear model. But a logit link function is best suited to a variable with a defined maximum as well as a defined minimum value (as with a proportion, for example). Lifetime breeding success does not have a defined maximum value. (I can see the purpose of the Poisson.)

The standard errors in lines 289-290 seem odd. The lowest value has a SE that is 30% of the point estimate, but the highest value has a SE that is less than 2% of the point estimate. I am surprised that the SEs are so different.

There are consistently negative estimates of the genomic inbreeding coefficient. My understanding is that this means that the two haploid genomes within an individual are more diverged than are random haploid genomes from the population. This is surprising. Does this reflect a breeding policy where the individuals crossed are more diverged genetically than are random individuals? There seems to be some talk of this in lines 431-433. Or perhaps this has some artefactual cause? This is said to be reflected in the low levels of pedigree inbreeding seen.  But the pedigree inbreeding seems quite high in the later generations.

In Table 2, the mean value for pi for the MHC seems much too low given the mean values given for the various generations.

Lines 360-363 say that there is no inbreeding in the captive population. This cannot be right. The pedigree inbreeding measures showed that there is certainly inbreeding. What the data in lines 360-363 show is that the measured pi values are not correlated with the degree of inbreeding.

The negative relationship between Annual Breeding Success and heterozygosity is only just significant (p=0.046), and this is just one of the twelve significance tests reported in Table 3B, and there may be a Type I error arising through multiple testing here.
Validity of the findings: See  above
Additional comments: Minor  typographic errors:
Line 39: “a” before “captive”
Line 44: “lower” than what
Line 55: hyphen after “demographically”
Line 58: “is” for “are”
Line 74: Add comma after “scale”
Line 84: Add “the” before “major”
Line 91: Hyphen in wrong place
Line 94: Comma after “survival
Line 99: “The pigmy hog“ for “Pigmy hog”
Line 100: Add “program” after “breeding”
Line 104: “, which” for “that”
Line 112: Add “the” before “critically”
Line 141 (and 142): “individuals’” for “individual’s”
Line 153: “The pigmy hog“ for “Pigmy hog”
Line 181: “were subjected” for “subject”
Line 200: Add comma before “close”
Line 250: Add “and” before “nucleotide”
Line 271: “individual” for “individuals”
Line 290: Remove comma after “male”
Line 402: Add “the” before “chalk-hill”
Line 518: “tends” for “tend”
Line 533: Add “the” before “wild”


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: GENETIC EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM CAPTIVE BREEDING ON THE ENDANGERED PYGMY HOG
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: my suggestions are fulfiilled.


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: GENETIC EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM CAPTIVE BREEDING ON THE ENDANGERED PYGMY HOG
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: I have read the revised version of the paper, and my initial feeling is that, while very major changes have been made to the discussion section, elsewhere there was a need for a more thorough revision of the methods and results sections. In particular, the methods section should say more about the methodology for choosing animals to be parents. I felt that I found out more about this from the authors’ rebuttal letter than I did from the paper itself.
Having read this revised version of the manuscript I felt that the authors should still add some more explanation about the relationship between the measure of H, or heterozygosity and the diversity of the population. While this was not entirely clear to me from the first version, the individual measures of heterozygosity, H, are higher than expected from random mating as a result of the breeders choosing the most diverged animals to use as parents. This is, I think, the reason why H is significantly higher in subsequent generations than it is in the founders. I can see that choosing the most diverged individuals to be parents is a good strategy for maintaining diversity. But this strategy means that H is no longer a good measure of the diversity that exists in the population. It is certainly not equivalent to pi or the gene diversity, which is the divergence between randomly chosen alleles. There are sentences such as on  line 475 (in the “track-changes” numbering) that  imply  that H is a measure  of the diversity in the population.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by the authors’ argument that there was no type 1 error expected with the significant negative correlation between the H value in males and their annual reproductive success, although I now see that the ABS values essentially restate the results for LBS, once the effect of the number of breeding attempts on LBS is taken out in the analysis.
Experimental design: Specific points about this version (numbers refer to the “track-changes” numbering):
Line 51: The paper says “we find no evidence of inbreeding”. I had questioned whether the authors meant that they had found no evidence of inbreeding depression, but they said that it was inbreeding itself that they had found no evidence for. This statement would confuse readers, as there has clearly been inbreeding going on, the pedigree shows that relatives are mating. I think that the authors mean that they have failed to find a sign of inbreeding in some specific molecular test, such as, maybe, looking for runs of homozygosity. If so, they should be more specific about this, as the population is unquestionably inbred. This is also relevant to line 95.
In line  328, I don’t think that it is true that the negative F values suggest that there is no loss of heterozygosity in the captive population. It’s the H values that show that there is no loss of heterozygosity. The negative F values suggest a possible cause for part of this effect (see above).
There is a problem with Table 2. The founders are said to have Hd of 1.00 for the MHC. This is the theoretical maximum value, showing that all MHC haplotypes were different. But if this is the maximum value, I do not see how it can have a standard error or standard deviation. The Figures 2(b) and 2(d) might be improved if the scale of the Hd on the Y axis was only shown up to a maximum of 1.00, as this is the theoretical maximum.
In lines 446-448, in my first comments I was saying that the correlation between genetic diversity and population size in the chalk hill blue was probably caused by larger populations harbouring more genetic diversity due to the reduced effects of genetic drift, rather than the authors suggestion that the genetic diversity was causing the populations to be larger. The authors have re-written this section but they still seem to be saying that the high diversity is causing the population to be larger.
In line 474 it is said that there is an increase in H in captive populations, and it is said that the observation that there are fewer runs of homozygosity is a “similar observation”. The two observations are not similar in themselves, but rather are both what might be expected if genetic diverged individuals were chosen as parents for the matings, as has happened here.
Validity of the findings: Minor Points:
Line 110: I had not seen the word “polymorphicity” before. Is the meaning of this term generally known?
Line 126: Add comma after ”program”
Line 134: Perhaps say ”downgrade” for  “upgrade”
Line 329: When it says that there is low  relatedness between  loci, I think that this should be “low relatedness between alleles”.
Line 357: In describing the MK test, which I think is the McDonald-Kreitman test, it is said that there is no significant difference between pigmy hog and Sus scrofa, which doesn’t express clearly what an MK test is  looking for, and, indeed, is quite unclear in its meaning. In a McDonald-Kreitman test the null hypothesis is that the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous base changes in the coding sequence is  the same for the variations within and between species.
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: EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS EVOKED BY SKIN PUNCTURE REFLECT ACTIVATION OF AΒ FIBERS: COMPARISON WITH INTRAEPIDERMAL AND TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL STIMULATIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: This is an interesting and well-designed research. The findings in this study help further understand the pain induced by skin puncture.
Validity of the findings: An interindividual variability as well as an intraindividual variability seems to be very high in VAS in SL. I am wondering whether each trial of SL was appropriately performed. Are there the possibility that different trials in SL activated cutaneous sensory fibers differently? The authors should discuss a high inter/intraindividual variability in VAS in SL. I think the authors should show the correlation between VAS and the latency of ERP in each trial in each stimulation.

I believe upward is negative in Figure 2. Please describe this.
Additional comments: This is a study investigating ERPs evoked by skin puncture, intra-epidermal stimulation (IES) and transcutaneous electrical stimulation (ES). The authors found that the latency of ERP to lance stimulation was shorter than that to ES and much shorter than that to IES. They concluded that the lance ERP did not reflect pain processing.

This is an interesting and well-designed research. The findings in this study help further understand the pain induced by skin puncture. I have several comments that may strengthen this manuscript.

An interindividual variability as well as an intraindividual variability seems to be very high in VAS in SL. I am wondering whether each trial of SL was appropriately performed. Are there the possibility that different trials in SL activated cutaneous sensory fibers differently? The authors should discuss a high inter/intraindividual variability in VAS in SL. I think the authors should show the correlation between VAS and the latency of ERP in each trial in each stimulation.

I believe upward is negative in Figure 2. Please describe 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: EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS EVOKED BY SKIN PUNCTURE REFLECT ACTIVATION OF AΒ FIBERS: COMPARISON WITH INTRAEPIDERMAL AND TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL STIMULATIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 2

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: The study was designed well and the conclusion drawn by the present results appears convincing. I have only a  minor comment that I want the authors to consider.

Comment
In an earlier study, Kakigi and Shibasaki compared short-latency SEP components, such as N20, between mechanical and electrical stimulation of the middle finger and found that waveforms by mechanical stimulation with a needle did not differ significantly from those by mechanical stimulation with a ball or by electrical stimulation (Electroenceph clin Neurophysiol 1984). Authors would find it worth discussing in their 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: EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS EVOKED BY SKIN PUNCTURE REFLECT ACTIVATION OF AΒ FIBERS: COMPARISON WITH INTRAEPIDERMAL AND TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL STIMULATIONS
Review round: 1
Reviewer: 3

Output:
Basic reporting: The manuscript is well structured and written clearly but should be checked for some small grammar errors such as missing pronouns. The Introduction provides the necessary background. Figures are relevant and correctly described.

The statement (abstract, but also introduction) that intra-epidermal stimulation (IES) “selectively activates A-delta fibers”, and that it is “well-established that pain processing can be evaluated using evoked potentials following the IES” should be rephrased more cautiously. First, the authors should take into consideration publications that have questioned the selectivity of IES (de Tommaso et al., 2011; La Cesa et al., 2017), and stress that IES is selective if and only if low stimulation currents are used. Second, I disagree with the statement that it is “well established” that IES can evaluate “pain processing”, and propose to replllace the term “pain processing” by “nociceptive processing” here and elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g., line 98: “ERPs reflecting pain (A-delta and C fibers)”).

The site of stimulation (hand dorsum) should be mentioned in the abstract as peripheral conduction distance is essential to interpret the reported ERP latencies. This also applies to the Introduction when discussing ERP latencies measured in adults (lines 79-99). Similarly, when comparing the latencies elicited by electric, mechanical and thermal stimuli, the authors should consider the impact of mechanical and heat transduction times.

Lines 77-78 : “whether heel lance in neonates activates A-delta or C fibers are unknown to date”. Consider rephrasing as it seems to me that what is unknown is whether the ERPs elicited by the heel lance reflect the activation of A-delta and/or C fibers, and not whether the heel lance stimulus activates these fibers.
Experimental design: Lance stimulation. Whether or not the release of the blade produces a “clicking” sound should be mentioned (see main comment in the next section).

It is mentioned that ES was delivered at “1.1-1.5 times the sensory threshold” and that IES was “1.5-2.0 times the sensory threshold”. It thus seems that the stimulation intensity was not determined solely based on sensory threshold. The authors should explain how the intensity of stimulation was determined for each participant.

Whether the experimenters were able to accurately monitor the onset of the lancet stimulus is crucial to interpret ERP latencies. Lines 185-189, it is mentioned that “an accelerometer attached to the experimenter’s finger detected the start of pressing the lancet”. Did the accelerometer detect the vibrations produced by the release of the blade? It is mentioned that “the duration from the lancet button press to the blade release was negligible as confirmed by a high-speed camera”. It would be worthwhile to report the actual delay that was measured by the camera recordings.
Validity of the findings: The results show clearly that the latencies of the responses elicited by the lance stimulus are shorter than the responses elicited by IES, supporting the author’s conclusion that lance-evoked responses probably do not reflect activity triggered by inputs conveyed by nociceptive A-delta fibers.

More surprising is the observation that the latencies of the responses elicited by the lance are also significantly shorter than the responses elicited by ES. What is the explanation for this difference if, as concluded by the authors, both lance stimulation and ES reflect activity conveyed by non-nociceptive A-beta fibers?

This brings me to my main concern which must be clarified by the authors. During lance stimulation, does the release of the blade produce a click sound? If so, could it be that the ERPs elicited by the lance stimulus reflect an auditory-evoked response rather than a somatosensory-evoked response? This would explain the early latency of the responses elicited by both SL and CL.

The discussion section on the “mismatch between ERP and pain perception” is not so relevant and very speculative. The authors may consider removing this section from the manuscript. Similarly, the discussion on analysis of “brain network activity” (Directions of future research) is not related directly to the present study.

Line 296, it is concluded that “an alternative method to evaluate the pain of skin puncture should be investigated”. The sentence could be rephrased because it is my impression that the main aim of recording heel lance evoked responses has been to investigate nociceptive processing in newborn infants rather than to “evaluate the pain of skin puncture”.
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: EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS EVOKED BY SKIN PUNCTURE REFLECT ACTIVATION OF AΒ FIBERS: COMPARISON WITH INTRAEPIDERMAL AND TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL STIMULATIONS
Review round: 2
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: I would like to thank the authors for addressing my initial comments.

They performed new experiments and showed new findings in the revised manuscript. I think the revised manuscript have problem as indicated below.

I disagree with their conclusion, “Lance ERPs, therefore, may not reflect nociceptive processing.” First, they should specify what they mean by “nociceptive processing”. Is it the activation of Aδ fibers, pain perception, or something else? Second, they found SL and CL, which activate Aδ fibers, had significantly larger N2-P2 amplitudes than ES which does not activate Aδ fibers. I think the difference may reflect “nociceptive processing”. They should discuss what caused the difference of the N2-P2 amplitudes.


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: EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS EVOKED BY SKIN PUNCTURE REFLECT ACTIVATION OF AΒ FIBERS: COMPARISON WITH INTRAEPIDERMAL AND TRANSCUTANEOUS ELECTRICAL STIMULATIONS
Review round: 3
Reviewer: 1

Output:
Basic reporting: no comment
Experimental design: no comment
Validity of the findings: no comment
Additional comments: Thank you for addressing my comments.