A Unified Forensic Model Applicable to the Database Forensics Field

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript deals with the unified forensic model applicable to the database forensics field. The objective of this manuscript is good. However, this manuscript needs some correction and justification for the following comments:

1. First of all, the authors should rewrite the introduction section and clearly say the contribution and novelty of this work.
2. In Figure 1, the authors should change the caption, which contains inconsistent sentences like "This is a figure."
3. The authors will rewrite the paragraph beginning with "To validate the … DBFIs field" in section 3.
4. My suggestion is to give the algorithms either in numbering or description, such as Step 1, Step 2, etc. The presents of both may lack the quality of the manuscript.
5. This manuscript displays a lot of typos, grammatical and phrasing problems.
6. In Table 1, the authors should make the sentences in the horizontal position. What does the word "Nomi-" means?
7. A lot of figures' quality is shallow, so the authors should improve the quality of the figures. Some contents are missing from the figures. Furthermore, the caption is missing for some figures.
8. Throughout the manuscript, the section subsection arrangements are improper.
9. Most of the references are not in a proper manner. The authors should carefully write and cite the references. The reference in the current manuscript is not suitable for publication. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors proposed a new unified forensics model, called UFM, applicable to the database forensics field in this paper. It unified all models and frameworks existing in the database forensics field. This model was compared with other models proposed previously in this field to evaluate its performance.

1. The main problem with this paper is its bad organization. Please reorganize it thoroughly to make it more readable.

For example, in part “3 Methodology”, please use another type such as (1),(2),… to list the different steps.

2. What are the counterparts and what is the experiments environment? Please describe them in detail in the related parts in this paper.
3. What are the advantages of this new model? Please detail it in your paper since it is very hard to grasp it after the first look.
4. what is the novelty of your paper? It seems that your model is only combination of several existing methods?

Moreover, this paper should be proofread by native English speakers to correct the errors in language before resubmission in the future. Additionally, there are many mistakes in this paper, which include, but are not limited to:

1. In line 30, “… was found a novel model that covers the whole existing DBFIs models…” should be “… IS found TO BE a novel model that covers the whole existing DBFIs models…”
2. Revise the title of Figure 1.
3. what is the title of the figure in line 400?
4. there are two “Figure 4”s in this manuscript. Please correct one.
5. line 446 ~ 447, was should be WERE.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors did the revision of this manuscript well organized. All the responses to the reviewer's comments are satisfactory. Hence, the reviewer recommends this manuscript for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Many thanks for your valuable comments and suggestions.

 

regards

Reviewer 2 Report

I don’t think this paper has been revised according to my comments, especially No.2, Nos.3 and 4 in my review.

Moreover, please color all your revision parts to let the reviewer find what you have revised easily.

So, I have to reject it at this time. However, if possible, the last chance of major revision can be given. 

Author Response

Dear Respected reviewer, 

We would like to thank the reviewer for his valuable comments which allow us to improve our article.

1. What are the counterparts, and what is the environment of the experiment? Please describe them in detail in the related parts of this paper.

Author Response: we explained in detail the counterparts and the techniques used for this purpose.

2. What are the advantages of this new model? Please detail it in your paper since it is very hard to grasp it after the first look.

Author Response: we have mentioned the advantages of the new model in Section 5.

3. What is the novelty of your paper? It seems that your model is only combination of several existing methods?

Author Response: The novelty of this paper has been mentioned in the Introduction section.

Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised paper can be accepted for publication.