A New Augmented Reality System for Calculating Social Distancing between Children at School
, Moutaz Alazab 2,*, Bilal Abu-Salih 3 and Adel Al-Jumaily 4,5,6,7,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper shows an attempt to measure the social distance among the kids in the school using computer vision technology. Authors claim that measuring the distance could prevent the disease spread, yet the the introduction do not cite relevant literature. Although the body of the text do not fully match the title of the paper.
The authors made several claims, although do not back them up with related research work. There is no proper related work discussion on different approaches to the measurement and presentation of results of social distancing measurement. Firstly, in the introduction, instead of explaining reasons behind their decision to use AR technology, they explain the differences between AR and VR. Then, in RW section, they present a short overview of techniques for AR tracking. However, this section in my opinion, is far from completeness, and its content do not reflect the subsection title well.
The claim: „In this study, the latest, most accurate, and appropriate 25 technology, was used to measure social distancing” seems to be neither logical nor true. Table 1 was expected by the reader to show rationale behind the AR employment for social distancing during pandemic, yet not much of chosen papers has anything to do with that area. Figure 2 do not offer any isight into important aspects of the methodology. Later, there are no details about the user study, besides a short info about the number of participants, i.e. n=100 children. There are no experimental scenarios, no system evaluation, no explanation of how the experiment was conducted. Did the study go through the appropriate ethical commission? What was the error rate? How that reflect the claimed main aim of the study, i.e. avoiding the violation of social distancing.
Discussion section is out of context, i.e. it does not reflect results at all. Conclusions are not supported by the results.
There are also numerous inconsistencies within the text. Some sentences are just stated, and no follow-up explanation is given. AR abrevation is not explained at the very first appearance in the text. In my opinion, the text has to be rewritten substantially before it could be accepted as a full study report. And the technical merits, study details and logic has to be explained in more details as well.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
The paper shows an attempt to measure the social distance among the kids in the school using computer vision technology. Authors claim that measuring the distance could prevent the disease spread, yet the introduction do not cite relevant literature. Although the body of the text do not fully match the title of the paper.
Response: thank you for your valuable comments, and we agree with you, new studies were added to the introduction to treat the comment. Line (22-31).
The authors made several claims, although do not back them up with related research work. There is no proper related work discussion on different approaches to the measurement and presentation of results of social distancing measurement. Firstly, in the introduction, instead of explaining reasons behind their decision to use AR technology, they explain the differences between AR and VR. Then, in RW section, they present a short overview of techniques for AR tracking. However, this section in my opinion, is far from completeness, and its content do not reflect the subsection title well.
Response: We agree with the reviewer’s comment. Yes, there are other ways to measure social distancing between people. Added and clarified based on your previous note where there are ways to measure social distancing, including the naked eye and smart ways as well. But what distinguishes our method is that it applies to children, as they do not have mobile phones. And they don't need sensors to wear that might restrict their freedom. We mentioned here that virtual and augmented reality were used in the Corona pandemic, but on a small and limited scale, as we mentioned in our study. (Line 22-31).
The claim: In this study, the latest, most accurate, and appropriate 25 technology, was used to measure social distancing” seems to be neither logical nor true. Table 1 was expected by the reader to show rationale behind the AR employment for social distancing during pandemic, yet not much of chosen papers has anything to do with that area. Figure 2 do not offer any isight into important aspects of the methodology. Later, there are no details about the user study, besides a short info about the number of participants, i.e. n=100 children. There are no experimental scenarios, no system evaluation, no explanation of how the experiment was conducted. Did the study go through the appropriate ethical commission? What was the error rate? How that reflect the claimed main aim of the study, i.e. avoiding the violation of social distancing.
Discussion section is out of context, i.e. it does not reflect results at all. Conclusions are not supported by the results.
Response:
We agree with the reviewer’s comment and we have adjusted the below:
- The sentence has been rephrased to be more realistic and in line with the reviewer's note. (Line 27-31).
- Also, Ethical approval has been added (Lines 249-251).
- We added section 3.6 which explains how the experiment was conducted (Line 174-182).
- New paragraph about participants was added (Lines 94-98).
- Figure 2 was deleted.
There are also numerous inconsistencies within the text. Some sentences are just stated, and no follow-up explanation is given. AR abrevation is not explained at the very first appearance in the text. In my opinion, the text has to be rewritten substantially before it could be accepted as a full study report. And the technical merits, study details and logic has to be explained in more details as well.
Response: We agree with the reviewer’s comment and therefore, the paper has been reviewed, revised, and linguistic errors corrected.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In this paper, the authors show an intelligent system was designed to monitor social distancing in closed areas, especially in schools and kindergartens for children. For this purpose, they have used augmented reality to help to determine the location of the violation of social distancing.
This investigation was properly designed. It seems interesting and with a well-done state-of-the-art, but I have two comments to improve this paper:
1. Please, explain in detail the system implementation (Section 3.5).
2. Please, include and comment the statistical results of the sample used in the research (in Section 4) (A total of 100 in 7th grade kids between the ages of 12 and 13 from two different public Schools)
Regarding formal aspects:
1. Please, place the figures and tables near of the first time that they appear into the text.
2. Please, improve the quality of figures (2 and 3). Figure 2 does not clearly show the Microsoft Kinect interface.
3. Please, correct 1.8 CM by 1.8 m (page 9, line 184).
Author Response
In this paper, the authors show an intelligent system was designed to monitor social distancing in closed areas, especially in schools and kindergartens for children. For this purpose, they have used augmented reality to help to determine the location of the violation of social distancing.
This investigation was properly designed. It seems interesting and with a well-done state-of-the-art, but I have two comments to improve this paper:
- Please, explain in detail the system implementation (Section 3.5).
Response: Thank you for your valuable comment, we added section 3.6 which explains how the experiment was conducted (Line 174-182).
- Please, include and comment the statistical results of the sample used in the research (in Section 4) (A total of 100 in 7th grade kids between the ages of 12 and 13 from two different public Schools)
Regarding formal aspects:
Response: Thank you for your valuable comment and we agree with you, we added the below paragraph (Lines 94-98).
The role of the children was only to stand on points on the ground with a known distance between these points in front of the system's camera, then read the distance from the system and compare it with the known distance between the two points, and repeat it with two other children, and so on. Then the average values were calculated. The children were a mixture of males and females.
- Please, place the figures and tables near of the first time that they appear into the text.
We agree with the reviewer’s comment and many thanks for your suggestion. Accordingly, we have revisited all the paragraphs and modified them to fit the journal template.
- Please, improve the quality of figures (2 and 3). Figure 2 does not clearly show the Microsoft Kinect interface.
Response: We agree with the reviewer’s comment. Accordingly, we have deleted Figure 2.
- Please, correct 1.8 CM by 1.8 m (page 9, line 184).
Response: We agree with the reviewer’s comment. Accordingly, we have revisited all the paragraphs and modified them to fit the journal template.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Now, the authors have improved the manuscript according to my comments. So, I recommend its publication.
