Review History


All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.

Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.

View examples of open peer review.

Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on July 10th, 2023 and was peer-reviewed by 2 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on September 7th, 2023.
  • The first revision was submitted on November 15th, 2023 and was reviewed by 2 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • A further revision was submitted on January 24th, 2024 and was reviewed by 1 reviewer and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on January 31st, 2024.

Version 0.3 (accepted)

· Jan 31, 2024 · Academic Editor

Accept

Thank you for addressing the final round of minor revisions. In light of the reviewer's positive reassessment and my own check of the new revision, I'm happy to recommend the paper for acceptance.

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Xiangjie Kong, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

This is a revised version of the initial submission. As a reviewer of this manuscript, I have raised various questions in the first round that are properly addressed by the authors. I appreciate the efforts of the authors. I have no further comments on this submission. My recommendation is to accept the paper in its current version. Thank you

Experimental design

Yes

Validity of the findings

Yes

Additional comments

NA

Version 0.2

· Jan 10, 2024 · Academic Editor

Minor Revisions

Please address the remaining comments from Reviewer 1, as per their original review.

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

The revised version has suffecient basic reporting now. No further comments on this section.

Experimental design

Experimental design has been improved, suggested experiments are added or further improved.

Validity of the findings

The authors have improved the paper after performing further research.

Additional comments

Although all comments are addressed,
Comment 2 seems to be pending.
Comment 8-9 needs some more explanation.

·

Basic reporting

no comment

Experimental design

no comment

Validity of the findings

no comment

Additional comments

As all my comments were more or less properly addressed by the authors in the revised version of the paper, I am pleased to accept the paper for a publication.

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Sep 7, 2023 · Academic Editor

Major Revisions

I urge you to please carry out the revisions as recommended by the reviewers & resubmit the manuscript. Reviewer 1 has submitted a separate document with his/her comments and suggestions. In my opinion, these will result in a significantly enhanced manuscript in terms of narration, presentation, and overall contributions.

**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.

**Language Note:** The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at copyediting@peerj.com for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title). Alternatively, you should make your own arrangements to improve the language quality and provide details in your response letter. – PeerJ Staff

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

The paper is well written and structured but needs changes, please see comments file.

Experimental design

Please see the comments. This section needs changes I have mentioned in the comments file.

Validity of the findings

Please see the comments file.

Additional comments

My recommendations to accept the paper after addressing the above comments.

Annotated reviews are not available for download in order to protect the identity of reviewers who chose to remain anonymous.

·

Basic reporting

no comment

Experimental design

The Following points should be included by author for the revision.
• While the study mentions that the existing MCSE system was tested only for White Gaussian noise, the types of non-stationary environmental noises tested in this study aren't specified in detail.
• There's a lack of deeper explanation on the technical workings of the DWT-CNN-MCSE system, such as the CNN architecture and specifics of the DWT preprocessing, which could benefit readers looking for technical insights.
• The research doesn't seem to factor in real-world challenges like microphone placement, distance from the sound source, or overlapping speech.
• Environmental noises pose significant challenges to speech enhancement systems, and their variability necessitates systems that can adapt to both stationary and non-stationary noises.
• The DWT-CNN-MCSE system's use of wavelet transforms and neural networks presents a promising approach to tackle the challenges of low SNRs, showing marked improvement over the BAV-MCSE approach.
• The varied performance across different SNR levels underscores the importance of designing speech enhancement systems that can dynamically adapt to different noise levels.

Validity of the findings

no comment

Additional comments

Suggestions:

• A deeper dive into the DWT and CNN components of the proposed system would provide readers with a better understanding of its mechanics and potential advantages.
• Simulating real-world conditions, like fluctuating distances between speakers and microphones, or handling overlapping speech, can provide insights into the system's practical applicability.
• Exploring the performance of the proposed system beyond the -10dB to 20dB range could demonstrate its resilience in more extreme noisy situations.

All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.