Digital Twins for Supporting Ageing Well: Approaches in Current Research and Innovation in Europe and Japan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript presents the technical and ethical issues of digital twin technology applied in the aging society. It is interesting.

After a careful review of the manuscript, I am suggesting the following comments to the authors to revise the manuscript.

1. What is the full name of “e-VITA”?  The author should introduce “e-VITA” project in detail.

2. Some specific information for the present study, essential for a good understanding, are not provided or they are provided too late.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Relevant findings from research areas around Digital Twin technologies are collected and presented in this white paper. The paper shows that the concept of Digital Twins can be usefully applied to elderly people. But it also shows that the technologies required need to be further developed and that ethical issues need to be discussed in an appropriate framework. English is generally very good and need to be improved.  The idea of this paper is interesting and helpful to ageing. While still some problems need to be solved as follows:

1. Human Digital Twins needs to be explained in this paper.

2. The data is collected, whether it should be preprocessing?

3. I cannot find some new contributions in this manuscript. It should be presented in this paper.

4. The conclusions should further highlight the work done and results achieved.

5. In page 11, what is the mean of “Glass Citizens”? 

English is generally very good.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript offered interesting perspectives on applying digital twin technologies to support the aging society in Europe and Japan. The authors collected and presented relevant findings from research areas on digital twins and addressed ethical issues. However, the manuscript requires improvements in terms of the English language delivery and organization. Some parts of the manuscript lack adequate explanations and clarity. Specific recommendations for revising the manuscript are provided below:

1. Line 37—45: Please provide a more detailed explanation of the e-VITA project and include relevant references.
2. Line 49: Please provide a more detailed explanation of the term “digital twins” and include relevant references.
3. Line 89: Please provide relevant references for the “Science, Technology, and Innovation Basic Plan (2021).”
4. Line 92: Please elaborate more on the “Cyber-Physical systems (CPS)”.
5. Line 120–122: Please cite references for “A machine, for example…the expected ranges.”
6. Figure 1: Please verify if the figure sourced from the Japanese Cabinet Office is copyrighted , as it may necessitate permission for re-use in a publication.
7. Line 163–166: Fix the grammar mistake in “Based on an …”.
8. Line 196—201: Please cite relevant references for the products and services mentioned.
9. Line 319: References should not be referred in the text. Phrases such as “…in [1]…” or “Reference [1] states…” are not acceptable. Please rephrase the sentences and ensure proper reference formatting. Fix the reference formatting issue elsewhere in the manuscript.
10. Line 397. Please consider adding the reference (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.019) related to aging with brown adipose tissue via PET imaging for “PET Imaging has been shown…”. 

Please see comments above.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article presented for review is made on a topical topic - the study of digital twins to support the aging of people.

From the point of view of practical and methodological interest, the article is certainly of high interest, since the article discusses the global challenges associated with the conflict between the increase in the number of old people who need a comfortable old age on the one hand and a decrease in the birth rate on the other.

This is a very important issue indeed.

Comments: almost completely absent illustrations, tables, analytical dependencies. The single figure (Figure 1) has poor quality (screen shape) and must be remade in a vector graphics editor.

The number of illustrations should be significantly increased. Tables and estimated graphical dependencies can also be used.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

All my comments were addressed.

N/A

Reviewer 4 Report

As a reviewer, I would certainly like to see an analytical article that includes analytical quantitative assessments of the provisions discussed and the results obtained. The lack of quantitative estimates is a big drawback of this article. However, the authors themselves have the right to decide how to build their article. The text of the article is structured, quite understandable, the topic of the discussed problem is extremely important. The authors raised many aspects, including ethical ones. A broad review of the literature is provided. The authors made many corrections to the text of the article. Let's hope that in the future such documents (constructions and applications of digital twins for the elderly paradigm "Society 5.0") will be discussed and studied not only for Japan or Germany, but also for other countries of the world.