Environmental Prediction Model of Solar Greenhouse Based on Improved Harris Hawks Optimization-CatBoost

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It is not clear what is the novelty of this study for greenhouses yield. Simply predicting the environmental parameters of a greenhouse is not at all a contribution unless you can show what is the importance. In addition, it seems that all authors didn’t read and approve the manuscript before submission. Otherwise, how can you explain you didn’t remove the paragraphs used by MDPI to provide guidelines of the paper preparation.

1.      The authors should include which research gap they are addressing at the beginning of the abstract.

2.      Please, remove lines 26 to 34 from the introduction. I think if all authors have read the manuscript before submission, such mistake was able to be avoided.

3.      The literature review should be critical focusing on the limitations of the previous studies on the paper topic in order to well-situate the contributions of your work. It is highly recommended to re-write the Introduction section.

4.      Lines 88 to 102 should be removed (see comment 2.).

5.      The quality of all figures should be improved.

6.      It is not clear for me what is the impact of your accurate prediction of the greenhouse environmental conditions?

Decision: This paper can’t be accepted in its current form. It should be improved and the objective of the study should be shown clearly.

English is poor. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Solar greenhouses provide a favorable climate for the production of off-season crops in

Northern China. Accurate prediction of greenhouse environmental changes is helpful in regulating the growing environment of crops accurately and promoting the growth of fruits and vegetables. This study constructed an environmental prediction model based on the optimization algorithm IHH0-Catboost. The results show that the multi-parameter prediction model of the solar greenhouse environment is an effective method for accurately predicting solar greenhouse environmental data. The content is concise, the citations are reasonable, the study design, problems, and methods are clearly stated, the results are apparent, and the conclusions support the article's findings. The paper still needs improvement before acceptance for publication in sustainability. My detailed comments are as follows:

Major Comments

1. Delete the first paragraph in both the Part 1 Introduction and Part 2. Materials and Methods. These parts seem to be a format requirement of the Journal.

2. In the Introduction part, the summary of the purpose and significance of the study is insufficient. In the first sentence of Section 2.1, the characteristics of the research should be described in more detail at the beginning.

3. After the machine learning model obtains the optimal model through the training and verification sets, the test set is used for the model prediction. It is not well reflected in this article.

4. To ensure reproducibility of the findings, it is recommended that the parameters set manually in each model be listed.

5. It is suggested to attach the scatter plot of regression to visually show the regression effect of different concentrations in Part 3 Results and Discussion. This is especially important considering that the regression effect of high concentration greatly influences the SHAP Value calculation.

6. The horizontal and vertical coordinates of Figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 are unclear.

7. The funding information and Data Availability Statement are not provided.

Minor comments:

1.      The pictures of the study should be clear and beautiful, and all the pictures should be modified appropriately.

2.      Please check the format of references. e.g. CO2, PM2.5   Subscript the number?

Minor editing of the English language is required. Please polish the whole manuscript.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript needs a major revision.

a)    Cite recent and relevant papers in the introduction.

b)    Improve the size and quality of the figures

c)     Improve the discussion of the results

d)    Include the future plans

e)     Highlight and explain the novelty of this work as compared to the published literature.

f)     The results reported in Figs. 3 and 4 are not very well explained.

g)     Include more numerical results in the abstract as well as the conclusion section.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

General Comments

In my opinion, this study can be considered for publication, but the manuscript needs to be revised and Authors should check the following comments for addressing mentioned issues.

The paper is aligned with the journal's scope.

The manuscript presents many language flaws. The text and grammar do not meet the criteria of a research paper. The entire manuscript must be re-written, preferably by a native speaker, taking into account the scientific nature of the text. Therefore, the text requires a thorough revision before any publication.

Detailed Comments

1) Missing information about Affiliation

2) LSTM - please explain the abbreviation in abstract

3) Keywords: ; Internet of Things - I think the authors should use different keyword

4) Introduction - first paragraph - I completely agree with another reviewer's comments; but why did the authors include them in the work?

5) Line 41: lack of dot in the end of the sentence

6) Please include a list of abbreviations used in your work.

7) The Materials and Methods - first, 2 and 3th paragraph - I completely agree with another reviewer's comments; but why did the authors include them in the work?

8) This study was conducted in a tomato base... - - what do the authors mean by this?

9) Figure 1. - quality and resolution of drawing - please correct it

10) at distances of 14m, 40m, and 70m - why such distances, especially 14m? The drawing does not reflect the dimensions of the tunnel - information about the width and other characteristic dimensions must be added

11) the greenhouse control equipment - SO WHAT EXACTLY? please provide detailed information

12) sampling interval of 30 minutes - why weren't more frequent measurements taken? I know from practice that sometimes measurements every 1 minute are insufficient for simulation

13) Please provide comprehensive information about the measurement sensors used during the research - all physical quantities measured

14)  data loss due to equipment malfunctions and sudden power outages - Honestly, this is rare nowadays, we have UPS and other relatively cheap devices at our disposal that protect us against this

15) Line 147: purposes." - correct

16) formatting and editing of the text is inconsistent with the requirements of the journal; please adapt the text accordingly to your requirements

17) Fig. 2, 3,4,5 - each graph should be separate; their quality is terrible - needs improvement; no detailed description of them in the text; please provide the meaning of different colors

18) Conclusion: The Conclusions section is too short and should be rewritten. 

In addition to summarizing the actions taken and main results, the authors should include an explanation about the significance of their results using quantitative reasoning in comparison with suitable benchmarks, mainly those from other studies presented in the literature.

The authors should include a clear and concise paragraph about their research limitations and future work.

The manuscript presents many language flaws. The text and grammar do not meet the criteria of a research paper. The entire manuscript must be re-written, preferably by a native speaker, taking into account the scientific nature of the text. Therefore, the text requires a thorough revision before any publication.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although the effort, the contributions are not yet clear. I recommend reject. 

English is moderate. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Acceptable in its current form.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Still the manuscript presents many language flaws. The text and grammar do not meet the criteria of a research paper. The entire manuscript must be re-written, preferably by a native speaker, taking into account the scientific nature of the text. Therefore, the text requires a thorough revision before any publication. Examples: "2.2Data Preprocessing "; " LSTM(Long"; ";IOT;"; " Zihui et al. [22]used"; "et al.[23]"

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

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Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The contributions are not yet well clarified mainly in terms of how the results of this study can support the agricultural actvities. However, seen the effort developed by the authors, I recommend acceptance of the paper in its current form.