Nearest-Better Network-Assisted Fitness Landscape Analysis of Contaminant Source Identification in Water Distribution Network

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Brief summary

This paper is interesting for those related to water distribution network management.

Authors conduct an in-depth experimental fitness landscape analysis for the Contaminant Source Identification in Water Distribution Networks providing some suggestions for designing algorithms tailored to solve this problem.

The paper follows a traditional structure, is well written, has a good set of references, including some recent ones, and presents interesting conclusions.

In my opinion the paper should be accepted for publication after taking into consideration the comments presented below.

 

Specific comments

After introducing the acronyms NBN authors should use them in the remaining text. Acronyms like SMOTE should be explained before being used. Acronym TSNE-KDE was not explained.

Authors should avoid using “we” and “our”.

Lines 44-46: this sentence should be rewritten, it seems that something is missing.

Lines 81-82: I guess authors were trying to mention that a unimodal optimization problem has only one optima which is the global optima, while a multi-modal problem has more than one optima but most of them are simply local optima.

Line 211: suggest changing “stimulated” to “simulated”.

Line 213: suggest changing “objective value, In theory” to “objective value. In theory”.

Figure 4: suggest deleting “fitness landscape” because it is duplicated.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript Number: Data-314430

Title”  Nearest-Better Network assisted Fitness Landscape Analysis of Contaminant Source Identification in Water Distribution Network”

 

The article proposes a methodology for calculating Contaminant Source Identification in Water Distribution Networks (CSWIDN) using Nearest-Better Network method.

 

The kind of research is interesting, but the reviewer would like to comment on some problems:

·         The abstract is unclear. Authors should rewrite the abstract, indicating how the research advances knowledge and qualitatively and quantitatively why it advances knowledge.

·         The authors should add a discussion section and describe why this methodology is superior to others in some respects and worse in others.

·         The authors should include the limitations of the methodology in the conclusions.

·         The authors must attach a flow chart so that the reader can follow the flow of the proposed methodology.

·         It is necessary to have a list of acronyms.

 

 

Therefore, I believe the article can be accepted after major revision.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

your work addresses a topic of significant interest to the scientific community. Below I suggest some

comments to improve your work:

- In the introduction section it is useful to underline the influence that the simulation model, used in the

simulation of the transport of contaminants, has on the resolution of the optimization methods since the positioning of the sensors changes significantly depending on the model used, as demonstrated in the following study (https://doi.org/10.3390/w15030559)

- Clarify better what the “fitness landscape” is

- Clarify better the purpose of your work

- Explain the conclusions in more detail.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

- I suggest you check and correct the presence of some grammatical errors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript Number: Data-314430

Title”  Nearest-Better Network assisted Fitness Landscape Analysis of Contaminant Source Identification in Water Distribution Network”

 

The article proposes a methodology for calculating Contaminant Source Identification in Water Distribution Networks (CSWIDN) using Nearest-Better Network method.

The authors have improved the manuscript, and all questions have been appropriately answered.

The authors have aligned themselves with the requirements of the journal.

 I am of the opinion that the article can be accepted

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Following the changes made to the document, I believe that your work is ready to be published