Development of a Cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Infrastructure Health Monitoring
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper presents a novel automated approach to develop a cognitive twin of a pavement structure by implementing advanced modelling and machine learning techniques from unmanned aerial vehicle (e.g.: drone) acquired data
The quality of the results’ discussion in its current form satisfies the requirement necessary for a research paper. Style writing and grammar should be implemented.
Author Response
Many thanks for your comments. See attached corrections for publication.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Before making any recommendations for a interesting scientific article "CNN-Enhanced Cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Infrastructure Health Monitoring ", I would like to present the following generally statements on the topic. Based on my long-term research and transfer profile in the field of holistic perception of the issues of pavement engineering, I consider the evaluated scientific article to be extremely topical and fully convergent with the following author's scientific research and educational premise. Personally, I consider the reviewed article to be a valuable contribution to Sustainable Construction of Pavements (SCP), whose foundations with an emphasis on saving non-renewable resources and minimizing carbon footprint laid Kibert (1994). Vanegas and Pearce (2000) presented SC based on resource depletion and degradation, impact on built environment and human health, and Pulaski (2004) presented a comprehensive approach towards sustainability in construction operation. Sustainable construction tools and standards were first developed for buildings. The first set of assessment/rating concepts and tools in the US were provided by the: Green Building System (GBS (USGBC LEED); the origin of these tools can be traced back to UK´s Building Research establishment (BRE) environmental assessment method (BREEAM) (BRE 2006; BREEAM 2006). Subsequently other “systems“ were developed: Canada: Green Globe, Japan: CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency), Singapore: BCA (The Building and Construction Authority) Greenmark, China: Green Olympics Building assessment System (GOBAS), Australia: Building greenhouse rating (ABGR), India: TERI-GRIHA (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment). Presented, in the conditions of Europe environmentally progressive technology of municipal waste recovery is in full compliance with Although differing in scope, the currently agreed common goals of SC are as follows: reduce carbon footprint, ecology and environmental protection, healthy indoor and outdoor environment, resource efficiency, conserve resources (land and raw materials).
To eliminate the shortcomings of the article perceived by me and the possibility of evaluating the article as excellent, I recommend the authors to consider the following requirements and recommendations.
Mandatory requirements:
LNSA 26-168...Introduction in this scope I consider to be too extensive as they say in our country "less can sometimes be more". It is necessary to abstract very detailed descriptions of the infrastructure sector and their rehabilitations into shorter, substantially connected units. It is necessary to omit generally known facts such as: "Pavements, like most civil structures, are subject to ongoing deterioration as they are constantly exposed to environmental conditions."...
LNSA 330...5.1.2 Feature Extractor Using Transfer Learning...it would be appropriate to separate the chapter titles with paragraphs (applies to the entire article).
LNSA 405, 489 and 596…5.2 Results and discussion, 5.4 Numerical results and discussion, 7. Discussion...it is necessary to modify the names so that there is no obvious duplication.
LNSA 496-500… Table 1 shows the comparison between the two loss functions. Since in image segmentation, accuracy is not the only metric for model evaluation, the Jaccard index is also used as the evaluation metric... the table needs to be reworked, numerically and meaningfully harmonized with the previous text and to supplement a reference to determine the Jaccard index.
LNSA 581...Figure 10: Cost and time comparison for 1 km of pavement...it is necessary to increase the graphic quality of the image and increase its self-explanatory level.
LNSA 624-632...Conclusions in this range, 107 words, and in this form I consider unacceptable... A key outcome of the study was to develop a proof of concept of historical road data being recorded accurately through a cognitive twin... develop" a proof of concept ", is not possible in this context of the methodology creation[MD1] . In the Conclusions, it would be appropriate to briefly confront the results of the author's research with the works of foreign authors.
Facultative recommendations:
LNSA 2-3…CNN-Enhanced Cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Infrastructure Health Monitoring...I recommend the authors to edit the post title. Personally, I would leave out the CNN abbreviation, which is explained only on page 91, and modify the title to something like: "Development of cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Health Monitoring in Australia". If the authors insist on the original name, it is necessary to implement "convolutional neural network (CNN)" into the abstract because the abbreviation used in the field of pavement engineering is not widely known and used.
LNSA 11-22... It would be appropriate to revise the abstract. I would dare to disagree with some common statements (Pavements represent one of the longest-living structures, having a post construction life of 20-40 years....), without their closer comparative specification. In the abstract, it is necessary to focus more on the author's contribution in the subject matter and more explicitly present more specific outputs.
LNSA 274-275 Figure 4: Turner street reality model...I recommend adding more detailed specifications to the description of the image (for what purpose it was created by what method,...) so that the figure acquires a more complex self-reporting ability.
LNSA 543... Table 3: Cost breakdown…in the table for European readers, I recommend implementing the values in euros or adding the currency conversion to the text.
The reviewed article "CNN-Enhanced Cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Infrastructure Health Monitoring" can be assessed as good, containing certain shortcomings that need to be eliminated. From the aspect of innovative potential of reviewed article, in case of incorporation of comments, or relevant justification of their non-incorporation, I am able to process a repeated review within 3 days (after returning from vacation on August 30, 2022).
Author Response
We sincerely thank you for your review. I have modified the document where applicable. Please see attached letter.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
By the author of the article "Development of a Cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Infrastructure Health Monitoring" (original title CNN-Enhanced Cognitive Digital Twin for Pavement Infrastructure Health Monitoring), I would like to present this summary evaluation. I am very pleased to be able to sincerely congratulate the authors on the excellent quality of the second version of their scientific contribution. The authors also took great care to incorporate my mandatory and facultative recommendations, although they certainly took a considerable amount of time. I sincerely thank the authors for the opportunity to expand my territorially limited knowledge and familiarize themselves with the new findings presented in the second version of the article under consideration. I keep my fingers crossed for publishers in sustainable improvement of their very useful magazine, even for my scientific field of holistic perception of sustainable pavement design, construction, management and recycling. Based on my long-term research and transfer profile in the field of holistic perception of the issues of roads, I consider the evaluated scientific article to be extremely topical and fully convergent with the following author's research and educational premise. Pavements should be designed, built, managed, maintained, recycled (decomposed) at a reasonable price, in reasonable quality, respecting the relevant requirements of users, residents in their surroundings and sustainable development principles.
In conclusion, I would like to abstract the presented facts into repeated thank and congratulations to the authors as well as the publisher of inspirational scientific journal Infrastructures.
