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You have responded to the comments and the manuscript has been improved for publication.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Gwyn Gould, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
After considering feedback from reviewers, I advise you to add orthogonal mechanical test in the limitation/future study and resubmit the corrected version.
THe manuscript is generally well-written.
The paper falls into the scope of journal and experimental design was clearly elaborated.
The results and discussion have been improved.
I recommend acceptance of the paper.
1) Authors have addressed most of the critical findings.
2) Authors have not addressed point 6 which is a major point.
Why haven't the authors explored orthogonal mechanical tests to supplement their findings? If they could perform these and add the supporting data, that could significantly improve the manuscript.
Unfortunately, the experimental design would not pass without orthogonal data to support findings.
3)NA
Additional experiments are strongly suggested to make this manuscript publishable.
The reviewers had provided their comments that will improve your manuscript. Please respond point to point. Thank you
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. #]
[# PeerJ Staff Note: The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at [email protected] for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title) #]
The manuscript is well-written and fits the scope of the journal of life and environmental sciences.
Authors completely elaborated the experimental design.
Please see the attached file.
This is an interesting article where the authors have attempted to study the shear bond strength of various calcium silicate materials as bulk fill composites. The authors are requested to address these points to improve the quality of the manuscript further and make it publishable.
1) Please provide an overall graphical abstract of the article, which would further make your work interesting to readers within the broader community and help them understand what you are trying to communicate better. The manuscript overall lacks graphical illustrations, and this is something that the authors could improve.
2) The references section uses formatting different from the rest of the manuscript; please fix it and make it uniform. Please check the entire references section and ensure they follow the same citation format. It is very inconsistent in its present state.
3) No works are cited from 2022 or 2023; a quick search in any database would provide you with recent works that are relevant to this paper; therefore, the authors must include and discuss recent works. Literature references must be improved with recent works, and sufficient field background/context must be provided in the introduction.
4) In the materials and method section, please make sure that you use uniform formatting to inform the reader of what chemicals you have used, where you have sourced them from, the location of the manufacturer, and any product identifiers such as CAS numbers, product numbers, etc. This would help anyone reading your work reproduce your findings if needed. Also, for software, please mention the software version.
5) The authors have not discussed the material science and the material chemistry of the various materials that they propose in detail. The polymer characteristics, chemical structures, and synthesis routes, if any, need to be discussed. Chemical structures could be provided as graphical representations.
6) Why haven't the authors explored orthogonal mechanical tests to supplement their findings? If they could perform these and add the supporting data, that could significantly improve the manuscript.
7) The conclusion section is not even close to being sufficient and is one of the weakest parts of this manuscript. The conclusion section should not be used merely to state results; a 4 line conclusion is unacceptable. The authors need to ensure that conclusions are appropriately stated, connect this section to their original hypotheses, discuss the implications of their findings, and should elaborate on that using their results.
Formatting of fonts is inconsistent throughout; make sure you adhere to the journal guidelines and make them uniform across.
General comments
It is recommended to send for English editing to improve the text and clarity. Knowledge gap is identified but requires refinement to suit the title of the study.
Details comments are provided as below.
Introduction
It is recommended to mention the reason for choosing bulk fill composite in this study.
Line 67-71: The sentence require English editing.
Line 77: Please spell out MTA in full as for the first time being mentioned in text.
Line 79-80: Please edit the sentence for clarity.
Line112-114: This sentence is looking at Theracal PT bond strength in comparison to other CSCs to bulk-fill composite. Biodentine was left out here. However, the title of this study highlighting the SBS of different CSCs to bulk fill composite. If this is the case, the last paragraph of introduction section (the gap knowledge) needs to reflect this. So please clarify this.
Material and methods
Line 124-126: Please mention The ISO standard for this dimension if present or if adopted from other study.
Line 138: Dimension of bulk fill composite is 4 mm x 2 mm. In abstract it was mentioned ‘Cylindrical polyethylene molds (2 mm in height and diameter) were used to place the bulk-fill restorative materials. Which one is correct?
Results
Table 1 is well presented. Table 2 is easy to understand. Figure 1 and 2 are clear.
Discussion
Line 180-183: Please elaborate more on the reason whereby TheraCal PT had better SBS with regards to its content as mentioned.
Line 189-195: Paragraph 2 needs to briefly discuss the findings of TheraCal LC is higher but not significantly better than Biodentine and possible reason.
Line 196-202: The discussion can be improved by comparing composition of MTA as opposed to TheraCal PT and TheraCal LC and how it affects bonding. It is good that the author mentioned chemical bonding of TheraCal PT and TheraCal LC, what about MTA?
Conclusion
Conclusion is adequate reflecting the findings of the study.
Line 315: He Z, Shimada Y, and Tagami J. 2007. Citation could not be found in text.
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