Foot/Ankle Prostheses Design Approach Based on Scientometric and Patentometric Analyses

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In general, this is an interesting paper but  it still needs improvements particularly in terms of providing the reader with a stronger rationale and justifying why this piece of work is important. There are some minor typos, minor grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Here are some specific comments:

Line 26: Delete 'that is mainly originated' instead say 'that mainly originates'

Line 41: Don't use the terms fingers. ?instead use the anatomical name - phalanges or digits

Lines 42-44: There needs to be a paragragh that presents a justification and rationale with respect to  scientometric and patentometric analyses. . Why is this investigation important? 

Line 51: Watch your grammar - 'While Emulates'  perhaps say while emulating.

Line 52: Delete 'kindly'

Figure 2: Watch your spellings "Patents"

Lines 87-91 is very long-winded and needs to be shortened. Break it into two sentences. The databases were..... An initial filter was applied to the search engines where undesired.....

Line 101: Watch your spellings (Google patens and Patenscope)

Figure 4: At the top of the figure why do you have a title Technology / kind. Please Delete.

Figure 4: Change the caption to 'A display of prosthesis types in terms of electronic, hydraulic and mechanical technology.'

Line 177: Watch your grammar. You could say Some documents showed multiple country collaborations (Figure 7).

Line 189-190: the wording "is made" needs to be changed. Perhaps say "has been developed/ created"... etc or something along those lines.

Line 199: Delete 'in'

Line 217: Spelling 'with'

Line 293: Change the word "determined" to "evident"

Line 315: Delete: 'exists' and replace with 'there is a presence of a marked...

Line 316: Remove comma (,) after foot/ankle

Lines 317-319: Sentence is too long. rewrite.

Line 320: Not clear what you mean by minimum of components. Do you mean: Minimum amount of components...

Lines 326-328: Improve this sentence it is confusing.

Line 334: Delete the words "due to" and replace with "because"

Line 345: Indian is not really a language or do you mean languages spoken in India.

Conclusion: You have so many short paragraphs in the conclusion. Most the sentences appear to have been bolted on and therefore do not link well. This section needs to be revised to reflect the outcome measures and the take home messages.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have no comments, this is a well-written and thought out study.

Author Response

Thanks for the time and effort in reviewing this document.

Reviewer 3 Report

1. P. 2, Section 2.1, Paragraph 1: In the patent search, the last two keywords ((Ankle OR foot) AND (prosthetic OR prosthesis OR artificial) AND (prosthetic OR prosthesis OR artificial)) were the same, whether it was a typing error?

2. P. 2, Section 2.1, Paragraph 1: In patent search, why not just input the target keywords once? Filtering layer by layer will only increase the time to find information.

3. P. 3, Figure 2: It is recommended to use Bar chart in Figure 2 to display the ratio of layer-by-layer filtering.

4. P. 4, Figure 3: It is recommended that Figure 3 should use Pie chart to show clearly the proportions of different categories.

5. P. 5, Figure 5: In Figure 5, the writing of main applicant was very inconsistent.

6. P. 5, Section 3.1, Paragraph 4: In this paragraph, it is mentioned that Clausen Arinbjorn V. has 8 main patent applicants, but there are 9 in Figure 5.

7. P. 5, Figure 5: It is recommended to use the Bar chart in Figure 5 to see clearly the ranking of main applicants.

8. P. 5, Table 1: In the header, the noun“Technology”should not be split.

9. P. 14, Figure 9: The name of main applicants (Sa Yeop Kim) is written differently from Table 1, which also shows that this paper needs to be revised.

10. P. 16, Section 4.2, Paragraph 1: Huang Stephanie [190] should be revised to Huang et al. [189]. and Ficanha E.M. [214] should be revised to Ficanha et al. [213].

11. P. 17, Figure 14: Title“A) Experimental powered lower limb prosthesis by Huang Stephanie [190] and two DOFs cable-driven ankle-foot prosthesis by Ficanha, B) Evandro Maicon [214]”should be revised to ”A) Experimental powered lower limb prosthesis by Huang et al. [189] and B) two DOFs cable-driven ankle-foot prosthesis by Ficanha et al. [213]”.

12. P. 17, Section 4.2, Paragraph 2; p. 17, Figure 15: Lapre [230] should be revised to LaPre [229].

13. P. 17, Section 4.2, Paragraph 2: References should be written in accordance with IEEE style, especially the writing of the author or main applicants is very messy.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have incorporated my suggestions. Good job.