Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study employed fuzzy neural networks for exploring the spatial effect of rural logistics. The following comments help the authors to improve the quality of this manuscript to an acceptable level for publication.

1.       The abstract section should be shortened to around 180 words. You may include only the major findings after “The results are as follows”

2.       The introduction section should be rewritten to include the following paragraphs: background, problems statement, a broad review of the solutions, critical review of the MOST relevant literature addressing the problem, academic research GAP and your contributions, and the organization of the manuscript.

3.       The literature review section must be adjusted. The main purpose of the literature review is to support the claimed GAP in the introduction section with an exhaustive review and more details. In its current state, it is rather hard to spot your research in the body of knowledge. Your review is rather selective and the flow of information is not accurate. A story-telling style of writing and a broad-to-narrow order will certainly help.

4.       Please provide supporting references for the indices listed in Table 1. They should also be discussed in the content with a clear explanation for the readers with different backgrounds. You should also discuss how you have come to the conclusion that your list is exhaustive?

5.       The methodology section must be improved by providing a step-by-step guide for replicating the method. A diagram should also be provided (this is different from the research idea in Figure 1).

6.       The software/packages used in your computations should be introduced within the context.

7.       The selection of the computational modules in the methodology should be justified. For this purpose, you should discuss the alternative methods that could have been selected by providing relevant references showing the successful implementation of the method in similar contexts.

8.       The discussions section should be extended by including practical implications and insights for sustainability.

9.       Considering the nature of this study, it would be nice if the authors can define research questions right after highlighting the contributions in the introduction section. If doing so, the results should be then organized for answering the RQs.

10.   The conclusions section should be extended by listing the limitations of your study and suggestions for future research.

Overall, my major concerns are (1) insufficient review of the relevant literature and (2) completeness of the indices.

Author Response

please check the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors conducted this research in the title of “Spatial differentiation effect of rural logistics in urban agglomerations in China based on the fuzzy neural network".

The paper’s subject could be interesting for readers of journal. Therefore, I recommend this paper for publication in this journal but before that, I have a few comments on the text that should be addressed before publication:

 

Comments:

1)Line 229,Page : Authors used this word “We” at the beginning of this sentence "We divided the maximum". The beginning of a sentence is a noticeable position that draws readers’ attention. Thus, using personal pronouns as the first one or two words of a sentence will draw unnecessary attention to them, so it is better to avoid starting a sentence with personal pronouns. For example, this sentence “We presented a new model in this work” could be rewritten as “a new model is presented in this work”. 

2)Abstract: In the Abstract section, authors should pay more attention to the main goals and questions that are supposed to be addressed in this article. It would be really helpful for readers of this paper because they first read abstracts to know if an article interests them or is related to a subject important to them. Instead of checking numerous written materials, readers depend on abstracts to quickly determine if an article is relevant to them or not.

3)Page 17, Conclusion: In the conclusion section authors should mention more words about their suggestions to future works. It really can be helpful for future studies and works related with title of this article. For example, addressing limitations of your research, your research will not be free from limitations and these may relate to formulation of research aim and objectives, application of data collection method, sample size, scope of discussions and analysis etc. You can propose future research suggestions that address the limitations of your study.

4)Which software has been used in this work to export the charts and diagrams in this work? For instance, software like SigmaPlot or SmartDraw are used to export and depict charts.

5) It seems authors used GIS softwares in this work (based on Figure 7 in Page 13), But there is not much information about that. For instance, authors could explain more about their used setting in this software. It really would be useful for the readers.

6) Figure 7 in Page 13: Authors could add the used scale in this map. Now there is just the North direction symbol on the top left of the map.

7) How many percent of the used data in this article is considered as Test and Train data?

8)Authors could add this word "GIS" in the Keywords section. The GIS softwares has been utilized in this article and it plays a key role in data analyzing and representing.

9)Since recently it has been proved that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning has a numerous applications in all of engineering fields, I highly recommend the authors to add some references in this manuscript in this regard. It would be useful for the readers of journal to get familiar with the application of AI in other engineering fields. I recommend the others to add all the following references, which are the newest references in this field

1] Moayedi, H., Aghel, B., Vaferi, B., Foong, L. K., & Bui, D. T.
(2020). The feasibility of Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm combined with
imperialist competitive computational method predicting drag reduction
in crude oil pipelines. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering,
185, 106634..

[2] Nasr, A. K., Tavana, M., Alavi, B., & Mina, H. (2021). A novel fuzzy
multi-objective circular supplier selection and order allocation model
for sustainable closed-loop supply chains. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 287, 124994.

[3] Hosseini, S., & Vaferi, B. (2021). Determination of methanol loss
due to vaporization in gas hydrate inhibition process using intelligent
connectionist paradigms. Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, 1-9.

 

 

Author Response

please check the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors employed fuzzy neural networks to construct a comprehensive evaluation framework of rural logistics.  The evaluation index was then used to make regional comparisons based on the prefectural city level in Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomerations in China.  This is an interesting topic, with its potential to derive more solid policy suggestions.  The paper can be improved in the following aspects.

 

(1) The construction of the “rural logistics index system” is a bit arbitrary. Could the authors confirm what has been included and what has been not compared to the existing studies? For instance, many dimensions used in the evaluation framework are not covered in the literature review section. A general framework on the choices of influencing factors is needed.

 

 

(2) In the methodology part, it is not clear why the number of membership functions in the fuzzy neural network is set as 22. The purpose of employing the fuzzy neural network should also be summarized and highlighted.

 

(3) There are many other prevalent methods employed to construct a comprehensive evaluation index. The author should clarify why the fuzzy neural network is important in its application to this research.

 

(4) Policy implications should be strengthened in accordance with the urban or regional spatial plans. For instance, what would be the implications for facilitating the polycentric growth (suggest reading, e.g., doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1658718, doi.org/10.1177/2399808319864972 and doi.org/10.18335/region.v4i1.158) to level up the lagged behind areas and create new opportunity zones?

 

 

(5) What are the cities identified as the “peaks” in Figure 9?

Author Response

Please check the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

1.     Novelty of the paper should be highlighted by improving the introduction section.

2.     Please, try to make the abstract much more comprehensible.

3.     Give a brief about how the literature review is carried out.

1.     What was the reason of using the present research methodology in the manuscript?

2.     The findings should be extensively argued and related to the extant research.

3.     The conclusion should be improved with reference to the present research.

Author Response

please check the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

A few other issues should be addressed carefully before we can proceed with this manuscript.

1. Clear research questions should be formulated right after this sentence: "Research on how to evaluate the development of rural logistics isscarce. Therefore, it is necessary to further explore how to evaluate rural logistics inthecontext of urban agglomeration"

2. The results section should be adjusted in accordance with the added RQs, i.e., by adding sub-sections

3. In the literature review section, a table should be added to compare the existing studies on "Evaluation of the logistics development" with yours, both in terms of method and the used indexes. The last row should represent your study. The columns of this table specify the features of each paper. This table is really important for supporting your research gap claim. This table is completely different from Table 1 of the current revision.

Author Response

please check the attached file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

all comments have been addressed correctly

Author Response

Dear Reviewer: Thanks again for your constructive suggestions and comments. These comments are of constructive significance for further improvement of the manuscript. Sincerely!

Reviewer 3 Report

All my concerns have been well addressed by the authors. There are no further comments from my side.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer: Thanks again for your constructive suggestions and comments. These comments are of constructive significance for further improvement of the manuscript. Sincerely!