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Reviewers are satisfied with the revisions, and I concur to recommend accepting this manuscript.
The author has fixed general language issues in their revised manuscript. The overall flow is clear and solid.
Overall design is robust. While it's still limited by its sole computational-based nature, the overall design is good.
The have provided ample evidence to support their conclusion. The limitations, generalizability, and scalability are also discussed in the manuscript.
There are some remaining minor concerns that need to be addressed.
All comments can be found in the last section.
All comments can be found in the last section.
All comments can be found in the last section.
Review Report for PeerJ Computer Science
(Comparing variable neighbourhood search algorithms for the direct aperture optimisation in radiotherapy)
Responses to reviewer comments and changes made to the paper based on these are generally at an appropriate level.
The revised manuscript shows clear improvement in language and corrected grammatical errors. The narrative is better written and easier to follow, compared to the previous version. The paper is well-structured and the figures are well-designed, clearly conveying the message intended to deliver.
1. Although the author has presented a strong study on prostate cancer, a discussion on the adaptability of the method should be included, especially those with more complex anatomical sites.
2. While runtime is not a major concern, this manuscript could be strengthened by a commentary on computation cost and runtime scalability, especially for rVNS, as this can be important for clinical translation and broader adoption.
1. Though this was brought up in prior review, the justification for focusing solely on prostate cancer remains limited. The study only included a small number of cases (5 from each dataset), which impairs the generalizability and reliability of the conclusion. Plans for future validation with larger and more diverse dataset should be included.
2. Given that the aperture number and does trade-off are critical to the algorithm's output, the author should discuss the sensitivity of the results to parameter settings.
The reviewers have substantial concerns about this manuscript. The authors should provide point-to-point responses to address all the concerns and provide a revised manuscript with the revised parts being marked in different color.
Note that the comments for R1 are in their PDF document
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should *only* be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
No comment.
Comments provided in the attached doc.
Comments provided in the attached doc.
No comments.
All comments have been added in detail to the last section.
All comments have been added in detail to the last section.
All comments have been added in detail to the last section.
Review Report for PeerJ Computer Science
(Comparing variable neighbourhood search algorithms for the direct aperture optimisation in radiotherapy)
1. In the study, two different algorithms were proposed for direct aperture optimization in the field of radiotherapy.
2. In the introduction section, cancer, intensity modulated radiation therapy, the importance and details of the subject, the Direct Aperture Optimization problem and literature were mentioned. First of all, a detailed literature review consisting of columns such as "originality, positive aspects, negative aspects, method" should be added to this section. After this, the differences of the study from the literature, its contributions to the literature and originality points should be added to the end of this section after the literature table in a more detailed manner.
3. The Direct Aperture Optimization problem was clearly mentioned. In addition, the details regarding variable neighborhood search algorithms are sufficient and explanatory.
4. The use of the CERR dataset as a dataset in the study was specified. It should be explained in detail why this dataset was preferred compared to other datasets in the literature and whether different experiments were made.
5. The number of apertures used, the beam-on time and the objective function value metrics used in the study are sufficient for the analysis of the study. In addition, when these metric results are examined, it is observed that they are at a certain level and appropriate.
As a result, it is very important to pay attention to the above sections for this study related to direct aperture optimization in order to increase the contribution of the study to the literature.
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