Enhanced Hyper-Cube Framework Ant Colony Optimization for Combinatorial Optimization Problems
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Below I am passing my comments to the authors:
1/ First, the title must be modified. Present the meaning of ACO in the title. What is the idea of Enhanced? Does your solution fir all problems of ACO?
2/ The scientific problem must be enhanced in the Abstract. Also int he Abstract, bring us the contributions and numerical results.
3/ In the introduction, elucidate the motivation, the scientific one, and contributions?
4/ How about the scalability and complexity of your solution?
5/ Critical: there are a lot of format problems in the Algorithms and equations. Solve them.
6/ What is the role of user on using your solution? How many parameters does he/she input in the system? How difficult or easy is to select them?
7/ Problem on understanding Algorithm 2. How about input and output?
8/ It is important to highlight comparisons against related work, showing achievements. Thisis not clear along with the text.
9/ Looking at Figures 3 and 4, it is important to insert statistical data regarding normality of the dataset, median, SD, IQR, and so on. The same is truw for the other graphs - up to Figure 12.
10/ In the Conclusion, again, bring your additions to the literature. Where can i use your solution in practical areas?
11/ What are the main limitations of the proposed algorithm?
12/ Critical: How about references from 2020 and 2021?
Author Response
please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper tries to present an improved variant of the Ant Colony Optimization meta-heuristic, i.e., Enhanced Hyper Cube Framework Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm, which can be used to improve the exploitation feature. I think authors still need to make some revisions for its publication in this journal.
- The motivation of this study is not clearly illustrated. You should make a clear discussion about the literature and show the challenges that need to be tackled.
- The linguistic quality should be improved to guarantee a smooth reading.
- Some comments on “Optimization algorithms and performance assessment methods" are not accurate. Authors need to read the following papers carefully:
DOI: 10.21037/atm-20-5997; 10.1016/j.engappai.2019.08.009; 10.1016/j.procs.2020.06.029; 10.1007/s10726-021-09736-z; 10.1016/j.jds.2020.08.010
- For Eq. (9), what effect does the calculation result have with the change of parameter Lambda?
- What the complexity of the proposed Enhanced Hyper Cube ACO Algorithms?
- I think that you should enhanced the comparison with recent Swarm intelligence algorithms.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article was improved I accordance with my previous issues. Modifications in the title, Abstract, Introduction, Model, Results and Conclusion were decisive to improve the quality and readability of the article.
If possible, consider these few points to improve the article:
1/ Present your contributions in items in the introduction. What are your additions in the literature.
2/ See an error in Pag. 16, In the caption of the fire 4.
3/ If possible, add a section named discussion in the Results, with the mai achievements and limitations of the research.
4/ It is important to present where can we use your research? What is the impact for end-users, a citizen for example.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
many thanks for your valuable comments and suggestions that majorly improved the overall manuscript quality. here below the responses to your recent comments:
1_ Present your contributions in items in the introduction. What are your additions in the literature
Response: agree, a new paragraph has been added in the introduction.
2_ See an error in Pag. 16, In the caption of the figure 4.
Response, it has been corrected.
3_ If possible, add a section named discussion in the Results, with the main achievements and limitations of the research.
Response, the writing style of this section mixes the results and discussion in one section. However, the word Discussion has been added to the title of the section and also a new paragraph was added to highlight the main findings of the work.
4_It is important to present where can we use your research? What is the impact for end-users, a citizen for example.
Response, in the updated introduction this issue was addressed.
Regards
Author Response File: Author Response.docx