Quantitative Assessment of Soldering-Induced PM2.5 Exposure Using a Distributed Sensor Network in Instructional Laboratory Settings
, Anna N. Petrbokova 1,2, Rongjie Yang 1,2, Zheng Liu 1,2, Gokul Nathan 1,2, Nicklaus Thompson 1,2, Alexander V. Mamishev 1,2 and Sep Makhsous 1,2,*
Karen Bartlett
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see my comments in the attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable and thoughtful feedback on our manuscript, titled Quantitative Assessment of Soldering-Induced PM2.5 Exposure Using a Distributed Sensor Network in Instructional Laboratory Setting. We sincerely appreciate your dedicated time reviewing our work and providing constructive suggestions. We have revised our manuscript to reflect your comments. The detailed revision information and point-by-point response are in the attached PDFs.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis article reports results of measurements taken around a soldering bench in an educational facility. While the measurements are worth reporting, the paper needs substantial amount of editing to bring it up to journal standards.
Specific comments:
page 1 (introduction): The first sentence is referenced using 4 citations that are not applicable as stated. Ref 1 is a reference for a sensor assembly (which may or may not have secondary references, but they were not obviously associated with the current statement). Ref 2 could be used, but needs to be cited as a review article, not a primary source. Ref 3 is also a review article, and ref 4 may have secondary references pertaining to the introductory sentence, but it is a stretch to find the references.
Page 2 first line of text: ref 2 could be used, but it is a review, and should be cited as such, not as a primary source. Ref 6 is a secondary source.
Page 2 second line of text: ref 7 reference is for VOCs, while the current paper is about PM. ref 8 is about acoustics in educational facilities.
Page 2 the sentence starting "Without intervention ... " is repeated three times using difference citations, but the identical sentence repeated.
Page 2 Soldering in educational facilities is referenced by a citation about diesel exhaust in school buses (ref 14).
Page 2 the sentence listing constituents of heavy metals found in soldering fume is not referenced until several sentences and changes of subject matter later, with a "pick and choose" pattern of random references cited together.
Page 2 the sentence "With 54,737 enrolled electrical engineering students ..." where? In North America? In the USA? In Washington state?
Page 2 the sentence " This practice can result in prototype devices such as (35)" is neither a complete sentence, nor a standard referencing technique to require the reader to find the paper to discover that it apparently refers to a something that has nothing to do with soldering.
Page 2 the sentence starting "However, the transition to alpha prototypes requires ..." is referenced with "pick and choose" citations.
Page 3 starts with a citation (21) to Beryllium which is not clear how this relates to the citation regarding high school students.
Page 3 first full paragraph refers to 'vacuum suction' which could better be expressed as negative pressure or exhaust?
Page 3 The second full paragraph repeats the same sentence "This study ..." twice.
Page 3 contains two "Error" messages in the last paragraph.
Page 4 last sentence: Figure 1 has already been deployed as an exploded view of an AeroSpec sensor earlier on page 4. the chamber figure should be figure 2a and 2b.
Page 4 end of first full paragraph refers to Table 1. Table 1 has already been deployed on page 3 as measurement range and accuracy of the AeroSpec sensor. Do the authors mean Table 2? However, there is no Table 2 in the paper.
Page 5: The paragraph refers to Table 2 which seems to actually refer to Figure 2, as there is no Table 2.
Page 6: Note two "error" messages.
Page 7: There is a Table 5, but no Table 4.
Page 7 note two "Error" messages.
Page 8 note "Error" message.
Page 9 first paragraph: the word 'vacuumed away' could be replaced by 'exhausted'
Page 9 The sentence "If the sensors detected ..." is repeated twice.
Page 9 labels a figure 3, but on page 7 there was already a figure 5, making a figure on page 9 figure 6?
Page 10 the sentence "These measurements ..." is repeated twice.
Page 10 Experimental results: I'm curious why the experimental design used activated charcoal to capture particulate matter. HEPA filtration would have been a better choice.
Page 11 has Figure 4, which by my count should be Figure 7.
Page 12 has Figure 5, which by my count could be Figure 8.
Pages 12 - 15: I've lost count of the figures, but suggest the authors find a standard way of identifying the figures in order of appearance in the text.
Page 16: Table 4 should be renumbered according to a standardized numbering system within the paper.
Page 19: Future work: while it is an interesting suggestion to add dynamic postures (such as wildfire fire fighters might encounter) to the measurements, I have only observed soldering to occur in stationary positions.
Author Response
Thank you for your valuable and thoughtful feedback on our manuscript, titled Quantitative Assessment of Soldering-Induced PM2.5 Exposure Using a Distributed Sensor Network in Instructional Laboratory Setting. We sincerely appreciate your dedicated time reviewing our work and providing constructive suggestions. We have revised our manuscript to reflect your comments. The detailed revision information and point-by-point response are in the attached PDFs.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have addressed the majority of my concerns. I note that the paper is very long and the authors could consider moving material into the supplemental section to improve readability.
