Detection of Localized Damage in Tomato Based on Bioelectrical Impedance Spectroscopy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper discusses the use of impedance spectroscopy technology to determine the extent of local damage in tomatoes. To accomplish this, a circuit model was created and impedance spectroscopy data were obtained using a custom-built platform for measuring local tomato damage using a self-developed four-electrode bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) sensor. The manuscript is related to the field of plant agronomy and is presented in a clear and structured form. A comparison of impedance measurements conducted using the developed four-electrode BIS sensor with those obtained using a needle sensor revealed that both sensors exhibited a decrease in impedance as the degree of damage increased. This indicates that the four-electrode BIS sensor can be an effective tool for assessing the severity of tomato damage. The findings of this study may serve as a basis for sorting and transportation of harvested tomatoes.The experimental design as appropriate for testing the proposed hypothesis, and the results were reproducible. The methods were fully described, and the conclusions were supported by the findings.

 

Table 1 - It is necessary to provide a description of the characteristics presented in the signature. 

Line 258 - It is essential to present the figures in sequence with the text. Figure 4 is referenced here, although Figure 3 should follow after the current paragraph. 

Lines 291 and 296 - Why is there a discrepancy between the number of tomatoes mentioned in one place (145) and another (150)? How many tomatoes are there in total? 

Figure 5 - It is required to add labels for levels and stages in the caption for the figure. 

Line 357 - Figures 7 should be presented in sequence with the text, as mentioned here. Figure 6 should follow the current paragraph. 

Figure 6: Add a description of axis names in Cole's diagrams A and B. 

Lines 366 to 371: This text is more appropriate for the caption of Figure 6. 

Figure 4: Add labels for photos a, b, c, and e in the caption for the figure.

Figure 8 - it is necessary to move it closer to its reference in the text. Please add color and feature labels. 

Line 404 - please add a reference to Figure 9 and Table 3.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewer and revised our manuscript accordingly. The manuscript has also been double-checked, and the typos and grammar errors we found have been corrected. We look forward to your information about my revised paper. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

Reply:

 

Table 1 - It is necessary to provide a description of the characteristics presented in the signature. 

Reply:

The features in Table 1 have been characterized and the problem of having too many bits in Table 1 has been corrected. Thank you for pointing out the errors.

 

 

Line 258 - It is essential to present the figures in sequence with the text. Figure 4 is referenced here, although Figure 3 should follow after the current paragraph.

Reply:

A fix has been made for this issue and it has been presented in order. Thank you for pointing out the error.

 

 

Lines 291 and 296 - Why is there a discrepancy between the number of tomatoes mentioned in one place (145) and another (150)? How many tomatoes are there in total? 

Reply:

The number of tomatoes is 145, the previous 150 was a clerical error, thanks for pointing out the mistake.

 

 

Figure 5 - It is required to add labels for levels and stages in the caption for the figure. 

Reply:

Figure 5 (now Figure 3) has added a label for the level in the figure title, and a description of the stage and level has been added to the text above Figure 5 (now Figure 3), so I'm sure it won't be too much of an obstacle to read.

 

 

Line 357 - Figures 7 should be presented in sequence with the text, as mentioned here. Figure 6 should follow the current paragraph.

Reply:

It has been presented in order. Thank you for pointing out the error.

 

 

Figure 6: Add a description of axis names in Cole's diagrams A and B.

Reply:

The axes of the Cole diagram are fixed with the X-axis being the real part and the Y-axis being the imaginary part, as I have already explained in Equation 1 for Re and Im.

 

 

Lines 366 to 371: This text is more appropriate for the caption of Figure 6.

Reply:

I think the original lines 366-371 were an explanation of the Cole curve in Fig. 6, and are not quite appropriate as a title for Fig. 6. I think the original title is still more appropriate.

 

 

Figure 4: Add labels for photos a, b, c, and e in the caption for the figure.

Reply:

I have added subheading descriptions for each figure in the original Figure 4 (now Figure 5), and I wonder if it is the version you are seeing that does not have these subheadings.

 

 

Figure 8 - it is necessary to move it closer to its reference in the text. Please add color and feature labels.

Reply:

I have changed the original Figure 8 to Figure 6 in the text so that it is closer to the in-text citation, as well as explaining Figure 6.

 

 

Line 404 - please add a reference to Figure 9 and Table 3.

Reply:

References to Figure 9 and Table 3 have now been added, and the original Figure 9 is now Figure 10.

 

 

 

 

1. This research aims to use a four-electrode bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) sensor in conjunction with artificial machine learning techniques to detect the extent of damage to tomatoes. By doing so, this study will allow for the early detection of damaged vegetables prior to their commercial transportation in order to minimize product spoilage.

 

 

2. The manuscript reviews various existing methods for diagnosing vegetable and fruit damage, but notes that these methods are either costly or damaging to the objects under investigation. The methodology proposed by the authors utilizing BIS addresses both of these issues.

 

 

3. The article presents a circuit model for conducting measurements. It describes a circuit design created by the researchers, which enables the use of impedance spectroscopy technology in agricultural applications to analyze the condition of agricultural plants. This information may be beneficial for other researchers seeking to apply this technique in their own work and further develop the application of impedance spectroscopy in agriculture.

 

 

4. In order to validate the reliability and accuracy of the proposed methodology, it is essential to conduct further research using various varieties of tomato plants and compare the results obtained with other techniques for damage assessment. It is crucial to investigate how the measurement outcomes are affected by factors such as temperature, humidity, light intensity, and other environmental variables. This will allow for a more accurate interpretation of the acquired data. It is also necessary to determine the stability and reproducibility of the results when repeated measurements are performed on the same samples, including technical replicates. The authors may analyze the cost-benefit analysis of developing and implementing a platform for assessing local damage in tomato crops, as well as the potential advantages of utilizing this technology in agricultural applications.

 

 

5. The conclusions of the article are based on the collected data from impedance spectroscopy. The researchers argue that the developed platform could be utilized to assess the extent of localized damage to tomatoes. These findings are in line with the presented results and support the hypothesis. However, in order to validate the reliability and accuracy of this methodology, further research on other tomato varieties and consideration of environmental factors is required. Experiments were conducted using a controlled press to simulate damage to tomatoes, and stress indicators were recorded using a BIS sensor. The data were then processed using a neural network, resulting in impedance values for various damage levels. It should be noted that it is unclear from the article whether all relevant aspects have been addressed. For instance, it is not explicitly stated how the findings of this study could be implemented in practical applications. There is a lack of detailed information regarding the economic viability of the proposed approach.

 

Reply:

In response to the fourth and fifth points we are on the tomato thought to cause damage immediately after the measurement of impedance spectra, so I think that factors such as temperature, humidity, light intensity and other environmental variables on the measurement of the effect is very small did not take into account, and tomato varieties are really only used to a kind of tomato, we will take into account this factor in the next study. Also the measurements were repeated three times in our experiment, the repeatability and stability of the data is high. Finally we analyze the cost-benefit analysis of developing and implementing a platform for evaluating localized damage in tomato crops and the potential advantages of utilizing this technology in agricultural applications in lines 208 to 213.

 

6. The references provided are relevant, but most are dated more than 5 years ago. However, there are also links to some more recent research from this year.

 

Reply:

For the sixth comment, we re-searched the tomato article and added three new relevant papers. (M. Mohsen et al. (IEEE Access, 2021), Benavente et al. (Physicochemical and engineering aspects), Wang et al. (Food chemistry, 2024))

 

7. The article includes tables and figures which require attention to detail. For example, the captions should provide complete information about each sample and its characteristics, as well as an explanation of what they represent, so that readers can understand the content. The tables and figures should be carefully designed, free from errors and typographical errors. Additionally, they should be consistent with the main text, so that readers do not need to search for the figures referenced throughout the manuscript. The data presented in the paper and their statistical analysis suggest that the findings are reliable and replicable. However, the presentation and visualization of the data could be improved for ease of understanding

Reply:

With regard to point 7, it is true that we have not done a good job on some of the charts, which have been revised in accordance with the corresponding comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I am sure the problem discussed is important, particularly for applied agronomy, and your ideas is interesting and productive. However, there is one very significant and principal issue related to the physical sense of biological impedance. The bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy estimates primarily water content, intracellular and extracellular (and presence of soluble components), in some biological objects. However, the water content and the ion distributions in water may vary very significantly, because they depend on too many factors... This means you should standardized not only tomatoes' sizes, varieties, and origination, but their water content and original ratios of ions. If you didn't standardize tomatoes and don't know levels of variation of water content and ions' concentrations, you can't to be sure that some differences between your samples are determined by damages, because they may be results of strong variations between fruits.

Some additional comments

line 80  - actually the BIS development started at least in 1962 (M.A. Thomasset)...

Sunsection 2.2.1 - you try to described well known statistical approach. For what?

Table 1 and some other parts - I suspect that some values include too many digits. Please, check significance of last digits in all cases.

Lines 270-274 - there is some repetition

Lines 379-381 - Cells may be simply damaged and destroyed physically (especially mechanically) or chemically as well.   

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is applicable

Author Response

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewer and revised our manuscript accordingly. The manuscript has also been double-checked, and the typos and grammar errors we found have been corrected. We look forward to your information about my revised paper. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

Reply:

1. What is the main question addressed by the research? The authors tried to solve some old problem, namely how we can safely and quickly estimate quality of tomatoes without their damaging.

 

 

2. What parts do you consider original or relevant for the field? What specific gap in the field does the paper address? I am sure that studies are original and important, particularly for applied agronomy. The authors suggested some special type of circular electrodes adapted for tomatoes and tried to develop some special model based on opportunities of machine learning. This technique and the classification approach may be important for other types of (agricultural) objects (fruits and vegetables, especially the compact ones).

 

 

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material? Actually bioelectrical impedance studies started at least in the 1960th (Thomasset, M.A. 1962. Proprietes bioelectrique des tissuş, mesures de l'impedance en clinique. Lyon Medical. 94: 107–118). For decades, they were limited mainly by the field of human/vertebrate physiology and medicine. However, in the end of the 20th century, our colleagues began to use this approach in the field of agronomy, particularly to estimate quality of agricultural production. I believe the first publication concerning tomatoes properties has been published in 1998 by Benavente, Ramos-Barrado and Heredia, but these authors studies only cuticles, not whole tomatoes. After that, results of some other studies were published. Some of them are included in the discussion. I guess that's enough or almost enough, because the authors suggested some special types of electrodes and a modelling approach to analyze bioimpedance data and tried to fill some gaps in the particular field of applied agronomy. However, I suggest to discuss also some recent publications. I mean P. Ibba et al. (Postharvest Biology and Technology, 2020, 159) and especially M. Mohsen et al. (IEEE Access, 2021).

Reply:

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I'll give an answer on point 1-3. First of all we did address how to do an assessment of localized damage to the tomato without damaging the tomato itself. Firstly, we measured the damage caused by our homemade BIS sensor when pressing on the tomato through the pressure sensor will not affect its continued sales, and then by artificially applying different pressures to cause different degrees of damage, in the use of impedance spectral data measured by the sensor, passed into the model for classification, the classification effect is good, which proves that the design of the tomato circular four-electrode BIS sensor can effectively characterize the damage of tomato and at the same time will not affect the subsequent sales. So we hope that the introduction of circular electrodes and a modeling method for analyzing bioimpedance data will fill some of the gaps in the specific area of applied injury. In fact I had previously carefully interpreted the article by P. Ibba et al. (Postharvest Biology and Technology, 2020,159), who focuses on ripening, which I cited in another article studying tomato ripening. Whereas it is true that the articles by Benavente, Ramos-Barrado and Heredia (1998) and M. Mohsen et al. (IEEE Access, 2021) I did not call on before, I read them after receiving your suggestion and decided to include these two articles in the references.

 

 

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered? There is one very significant and principal issue related to the physical sense of biological impedance. The bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy estimates primarily water content, intracellular and extracellular (and presence of soluble components), in some biological objects. However, the water content and the ion distributions in water may vary very significantly, because they depend on too many factors... This means the authors should standardized not only tomatoes' sizes, varieties, and origination, but their water content and original ratios of ions. If the authors didn't standardize tomatoes and don't know levels of variation of water content and ions' concentrations, they can't to be sure that some differences between samples are determined by damages, because they may be 2 result of strong variations in original water content/ion concentration between fruits. In any case, the authors should characterize variations of all quantitative parameters studied.

 

5. Please describe how the conclusions are or are not consistent with the evidence and arguments presented. Please also indicate if all main questions posed were addressed and by which specific experiments. Formally the conclusions are consistent with evidence and arguments. However, there is the problem with normalization of original data relative to water/ions content (see p. 4).

Reply:

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I will give an answer to the fourth and fifth points. Our overall experimental procedure is as follows: firstly, the BIS sensor is used to measure the measurement site before pressure is applied, then a certain amount of pressure is applied, and then the same site is measured, and each measurement is repeated three times. The damage level before no pressure was applied was treated as a grade 4 damage, and the rest had a grade 1-3 damage according to the damage level classification criteria, respectively, so we believe that although we did not perform the normalization of the raw data of the water/ion content, we made use of the relative values before and after the measurements, which we believe can respond to the change of the damage to a certain extent. Our pressing experiments were to apply a certain amount of pressure thought to cause different levels of damage. The scanning electron microscope experiments are to observe microscopically the microstructure under different damage grades. I believe we can prove through these experiments that the designed tomato circular four-electrode BIS sensor can effectively characterize tomato damage.

 

 

6. Are the references appropriate? Yes, but see p. 3

Reply:

We've added a few new references to further corroborate the problem. (M. Mohsen et al. (IEEE Access, 2021), Benavente et al. (Physicochemical and engineering aspects), Wang et al. (Food chemistry, 2024))

 

7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures and quality of the data.

Reply:

We have checked and corrected the charts.

 

 

Some additional comments

line 80  - actually the BIS development started at least in 1962 (M.A. Thomasset)...

Thank you for pointing out our shortcomings, but we were unable to download the article even after trying various ways. However, the article's knowledge of BIS measurements is covered in the article I cited.

 

Sunsection 2.2.1 - you try to described well known statistical approach. For what?

We note that this is indeed the well-known method. In lines 295 - 308 we have abbreviated the presentation of this method, keeping only a small part of it.

 

 

Table 1 and some other parts - I suspect that some values include too many digits. Please, check significance of last digits in all cases.

We noticed that there were indeed some too many numbers, and at that time, the software calculated a few digits and applied them directly without considering the significance of the last digit, and now we have culled the numbers so that the numbers in Table 1 and Fig. 6 can correspond to each other, while still reflecting its significance.

 

 

Lines 270-274 - there is some repetition

Reply:

We have noted that there is indeed some duplication and have made corrections.

 

 

Lines 379-381 - Cells may be simply damaged and destroyed physically (especially mechanically) or chemically as well. 

Reply:

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. It is indeed possible that this is only physically (especially mechanically) or chemically damaged and disrupted, and on the SEM images we can also see that the cells are basically undamaged at level 4 damage, and may just be slightly deformed, but there is an increase in tissue fluid in the stressed parts of the fruit tissue, an increase in the concentration of conductive ions in the damaged location, and a decrease in tomato impedance, and this is how we are considering it, in line 361 - line 382 in the article.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The work of Yongnian et al. proposes an impedance method (BIS) to determine damage on the surface of tomatoes. The idea is to have an analytical method that does not damage the tomatoes themselves during the analysis. The technique proposed is quite interesting but the study fails to be clear and concise. Additionally, it seems that the authors want to connect the paper to an industrial problem, but the link to the industry or applicability of the technique to industrial settings is far from being properly detailed. I suggest this paper is published only if major changes to the document are implemented

 

I am not sure if this journal has any word limit but the abstract sounds quite long.

Line 40 and 41 should have some quantitative descriptor of production, import/export, share percentage, etc.

 

Line 50 onwards describe some analytical techniques used in the laboratory as if they were widely adopted at a commercial scale. It would be interesting to know if any commercial operations actually use MRI or NIR and what are the benefits in terms of cost benefits of using such techniques

 

Line 78. There is no pressing need for such techniques. Later on it is also stated that BIS is widely adopted, which is really doubtful. I suggest the authors to carefully revise their language to better reflect reality.

 

Section 2 and Section 3 needs to be restructured. Some examples of improvements:

·         There should be only one section dedicated to materials and methods.

·     The introductory part of section 2 should be integrated and shortened with 2.2. Most of the material of 2.2.1 seems to be for a supplementary section, not really for the bulk of the paper.

·         I am not sure on the relevance of figure 1, or maybe it should be integrated in Figure 3.

·         Details of the SEM analysis are lacking at this point and are reported later in 3.2.3 (this is hard to follow).

·         Section 3.2 is again on the test methods that any reader thought were explained up to section 3.1.

·         Figure 4 is not necessary. Scientific papers do not report photos of the instruments used

·         Etc. etc. The whole experimental method section needs to be rewritten

Line 340. This line reports two times a definition of FN

Figure 7 is cited before figure 6. The SEM images of Figure 7 seem to miss a blank reference, that is an undamaged/untouched tomato skin

 

In figure 8 the features should be made explicit for easy readability. Regardless, I am wondering about the relevance of this figure for the main text. It looks as if it could be easily moved to supplementary as the information reported is not much.

 

Lin 398 to 409 have some information more suited for the method section

 

I am not sure that a section “outlook” is allowed by the format of this journal. Regardless, it is unlikely that such approach will be used at industrial scale. If the authors want to present the study as an application study relevant to the industry the authors should be more specific and quantitative in which settings this could be useful. Otherwise they should present the study as a more fundamental approach to tomatoes damage 

References:

The citation style in the paper text is often wrong, with both the first and last name of the cited author reported in the text

The papers in Chinese language can be removed even if the abstract is in English. They will not be accessible by the wider readership

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language of the manuscript can be improved in several areas. I recommend the authors to have a professional service to go over their manual

Author Response

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewer and revised our manuscript accordingly. The manuscript has also been double-checked, and the typos and grammar errors we found have been corrected. We look forward to your information about my revised paper. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

Reply:

 

I am not sure if this journal has any word limit but the abstract sounds quite long.

Reply:

Dear reviewer, I looked at my abstract and it is 276 characters, which I believe is an appropriate word count for an abstract, but of course we have abbreviated it to some extent!

 

 

Line 40 and 41 should have some quantitative descriptor of production, import/export, share percentage, etc.

Reply:

I've added some new quantitative descriptions of production, imports/exports, share percentages, etc. in lines 39-42

 

 

Line 50 onwards describe some analytical techniques used in the laboratory as if they were widely adopted at a commercial scale. It would be interesting to know if any commercial operations actually use MRI or NIR and what are the benefits in terms of cost benefits of using such techniques

Reply:

Sorry, but it is true that the analytical methods described from line 50 onwards are rarely used commercially, and are mostly applied in academic research in the laboratory. What I was trying to convey was a method for measuring tomato damage using tomato bioinformation, which was my original intent in summarizing these three methods.

 

 

Line 78. There is no pressing need for such techniques. Later on it is also stated that BIS is widely adopted, which is really doubtful. I suggest the authors to carefully revise their language to better reflect reality.

Reply:

We have already made changes in line 78 - line 84

 

 

Section 2 and Section 3 needs to be restructured. Some examples of improvements:

• There should be only one section dedicated to materials and methods.
•    The introductory part of section 2 should be integrated and shortened with 2.2. Most of the material of 2.2.1 seems to be for a supplementary section, not really for the bulk of the paper.
• I am not sure on the relevance of figure 1, or maybe it should be integrated in Figure 3.
• Details of the SEM analysis are lacking at this point and are reported later in 3.2.3 (this is hard to follow).
• Section 3.2 is again on the test methods that any reader thought were explained up to section 3.1.
• Figure 4 is not necessary. Scientific papers do not report photos of the instruments used
• Etc. etc. The whole experimental method section needs to be rewritten

 

Reply:

We have restructured Sections 2 and 3 by combining the two sections into one and making each experiment a separate subsection, which we believe will make the presentation clearer. We have abbreviated most of the material in 2.2.1, and retained only a portion of the introduction to Spearman as a statistical method. Any recurring sections have been trimmed.

 

 

Line 340. This line reports two times a definition of FN

Reply:

Modified to retain only one introduction, see line 350 - line 352 for details

 

 

Figure 7 is cited before figure 6. The SEM images of Figure 7 seem to miss a blank reference, that is an undamaged/untouched tomato skin

Reply:

The references are now in line with the order of the figures, and in Figure 7 (now Figure 9) we only show pictures of the SEM for four different damage levels, with the absence of indentation in the text defined as a level four damage (LV4), which is essentially indistinguishable from a normal tomato. We consider grade IV damage to be somewhat representative of undamaged/untouched tomato skins, and therefore there is no blank reference.

 

 

In figure 8 the features should be made explicit for easy readability. Regardless, I am wondering about the relevance of this figure for the main text. It looks as if it could be easily moved to supplementary as the information reported is not much.

Reply:

Figure 8 (now Figure 6) is associated with Table 1, as I had previously expressed the two charts separately resulting in them not looking so relevant. It is now presented centrally in line 307 - line 309, while illustrating both charts.

 

 

Lin 398 to 409 have some information more suited for the method section

Reply:

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, I've changed some of the statements in line 396 - line 407 to hopefully be more in line with the information in the methods section.

 

 

I am not sure that a section “outlook” is allowed by the format of this journal. Regardless, it is unlikely that such approach will be used at industrial scale. If the authors want to present the study as an application study relevant to the industry the authors should be more specific and quantitative in which settings this could be useful. Otherwise they should present the study as a more fundamental approach to tomatoes damage 

Reply:

I checked previous articles in this journal and it is possible to have an outlook section. Meanwhile, the second paragraph of my outlook is that I would like to replace commercial impedance analyzers with our own impedance measurement equipment and realize miniaturization of the equipment. Of course, if we want to realize the industrial scale application, we consider to add our sensor on the industrial robotic arm grips, screen the potentially damaged tomatoes with the support of the camera, and at the same time, use the robotic arm to clip the tomatoes, and read the impedance spectral data at the same time of clipping, and then classify the tomatoes. The existing research can provide a basis for subsequent work.

 

 

References:

The citation style in the paper text is often wrong, with both the first and last name of the cited author reported in the text

The papers in Chinese language can be removed even if the abstract is in English. They will not be accessible by the wider readership

Reply:

Citations have been revised so that the citation formatting meets the current formatting requirements of the journal.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this manuscript, the authors developed a method to measure localized damage on tomatoes using BIS instrument with their self-designed electrode. Their method seems valid however many parts of methods and experiment section are not clear.

 

 

Major

1.      The methods session are not clear enough. For example, Line 227, that do R1, Q1, n1, R2, Q2, n2 denote?

2.      Section 3.2.2. 145 tomatoes were picked. Why was BIS conducted on 150 tomatoes afterwards?

3.      Line 328-331 is also confusing. Only 145 tomatoes are tested in this experiment. Why the numbers of tomatoes exhibiting different degree of damage can reach 805? Please explain in the method section how the 1616 sets of data were obtained from the 145 tomatoes.

 

4.      The self-designed electrode is one highlight of the new methods. However, the manuscript is missing a lot of information on the electrodes. The authors should also provide more detail about how the electrodes are prepared.  What is the difference and advantage for the four electrode methods compared to the two electrode method? The authors claim that the needle electrode is less invasive but the images in Figures 3 and 6 do not show clearly how less invasive it is. The authors should provide side-by-side comparison of the damage of the tomato from the needle electrode and the traditional electrode.

 

 

 

Minor

1.      The formats of the authors’ names are not consistent.

2.      Line 7, it should be Nanjing Agricultural University.

3.      Line 57-66, please fix the grammar

4.      The first part of the section 2, line 144-167 seems more relevant as introduction rather than methods.

5.      Line 214, please specify what denotes the difference between the ranks (rxi, ryi).

6.      In Table1, please add what each feature stands for. Although they are all mentioned in the text, it would be easier for the readers to understand the table if they can know from the table directly what the features are exactly.

7.      Line 254-257 is disorganized.

 

8.      Based on the flow of the text, figure 6 and 7 should be swapped in order

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The authors need to improve the clarity and conciseness of the introduction and the method sections. Some information showed up repetitively in different sections and should be reorganized. 

Author Response

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewer and revised our manuscript accordingly. The manuscript has also been double-checked, and the typos and grammar errors we found have been corrected. We look forward to your information about my revised paper. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

Reply:

 

Major

1. The methods session are not clear enough. For example, Line 227, that do R1, Q1, n1, R2, Q2, n2 denote?

Reply:

The original R1, Q1, n1, R2, Q2, n2 representations were placed in the caption of the picture, the expression is not clear enough, and now the formulae are added in line 221 - 227 to illustrate that these parameters represent the electronic components inside the equivalent circuit.

 

 

2. Section 3.2.2. 145 tomatoes were picked. Why was BIS conducted on 150 tomatoes afterwards?

Reply:

This is a clerical error in my writing; the correct number of tomatoes is 145.

 

 

3. Line 328-331 is also confusing. Only 145 tomatoes are tested in this experiment. Why the numbers of tomatoes exhibiting different degree of damage can reach 805? Please explain in the method section how the 1616 sets of data were obtained from the 145 tomatoes.

        Reply:

The 1616 sets of data were obtained in this way: we tested 145 tomatoes, and 4 were accidentally damaged in the course of testing. That left 141. And these 141 tomatoes we measured two different positions, each position was measured three times before the damage, and three times after the damage, that's 141*2*3*2=1692. at the same time, we wrote a screening program for the data, to make sure that those incorrect data will not go to the next step, so that there are 1616 sets of data left.

 

 

4. The self-designed electrode is one highlight of the new methods. However, the manuscript is missing a lot of information on the electrodes. The authors should also provide more detail about how the electrodes are prepared.  What is the difference and advantage for the four electrode methods compared to the two electrode method? The authors claim that the needle electrode is less invasive but the images in Figures 3 and 6 do not show clearly how less invasive it is. The authors should provide side-by-side comparison of the damage of the tomato from the needle electrode and the traditional electrode.

        Reply:

More detailed information on how to prepare the electrodes has been added in lines 208 - 213 in the text.

        The differences and advantages of the four electrode methods are added in lines 174 - 186 of the text.

        A comparison of the damage caused by needle electrodes and conventional electrodes has been added in Figure 8

 

 

Minor

1. The formats of the authors’ names are not consistent.

We've corrected our mistakes.

 

2. Line 7, it should be Nanjing Agricultural University.

We've corrected our mistakes.

 

3. Line 57-66, please fix the grammar

We've corrected our mistakes.

 

4. The first part of the section 2, line 144-167 seems more relevant as introduction rather than methods.

The text does introduce the different damage levels of the tomato, and I think that placing it now at line 229 - line 240 better allows the reader to understand how the damage this experiment was conducted and why it was set up the way it was.

 

5. Line 214, please specify what denotes the difference between the ranks (rxi, ryi).

We have abbreviated this section, deleting large introductory paragraphs and retaining only a portion, so that the new revision does not show the difference between the ranks (rxi, ryi)

 

6. In Table1, please add what each feature stands for. Although they are all mentioned in the text, it would be easier for the readers to understand the table if they can know from the table directly what the features are exactly.

I've put the original Figure 8 (now Figure 6) and Table 1 together, along with the physical quantities corresponding to each feature in lines 305 - 307 of the article, along with a description of Figure 6 and Table 1, which I'm sure will make it easier for the reader to understand than before.

 

7. Line 254-257 is disorganized.

Modified, I split the original one chart into two charts, while those two paragraphs are no longer in the same paragraph.

 

8. Based on the flow of the text, figure 6 and 7 should be swapped in order

We've corrected our mistakes.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thank you very much for cooperation. I hope your text is almost ready for the next step.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English language is applicable, some minor and  formal editing is required.

Author Response

Dear reviewer.

Thank you very much for reviewing my article and giving such valuable comments and support in your busy schedule. I feel very honored and excited to learn that you have agreed to publish my article. This is not only a recognition of my research work, but also a great encouragement for my future research path. I will continue to work hard to explore and innovate in my future research and strive to contribute more valuable results. Thank you again for your hard work and professional guidance!

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have implemented several changes to the manuscript. While there have been improvements I think the overall presentation could be better (length, quality of the figure, manuscript flow, etc.) and I have not really changed my assessment. The paper can be published though 

Author Response

Dear reviewer.

Thank you very much for reviewing my article and giving such valuable comments and support in your busy schedule. I feel very honored and excited to learn that you have agreed to publish my article. This is not only a recognition of my research work, but also a great encouragement for my future research path. I will continue to work hard to explore and innovate in my future research and strive to contribute more valuable results. Thank you again for your hard work and professional guidance!

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript has been extensively reorganized and shortened. However, the review thinks that the authors need further clarification in their methods sections.

 

Major points

1.      The authors need to explicit that the goal of pressing test is to inflict damage on tomatoes and collect the “actual” data point. The same tomatoes will be used for detection by the BIS method. The authors should incorporate their response #3 into the main text and explain how the 1616 data points were obtained.

 

Here the reviewer has a further clarifying question: When the BIS measurement was conducted, where on the tomato did the authors attach the electrode? Was the electrode placed right on top of the pressed region? Or was the electrode placed randomly? If the electrode is placed close to but not on top of the pressed region, how did the data look like? If the electrode has to be placed on the pressed region to detect damage, this may add to another limitation of this method because the detection is very localized and in order to evaluate a tomato, one has to do many measurements to scan one tomato. If so, the authors may want to mention this in the discussion section.

 

2.      The authors provided more information on the four-electrode method and explained its advantages. Ideally, the authors should describe how the electrode was made/produced if the electrode production is not standardized. What is the material for the electrodes? In addition, the authors should describe how the electrode is attached to the tomato. Based on figure 8, the electrode needs to be pressed onto the tomato. Then how much does the pressing force affect the readout? What measures did the authors take to standardize this step?

 

Minor points

1.      The discrepancy of the number of tomato tested still exist in the text (Line 231).

2.      Due to the rearrangement of the texts, some acronyms, such as FSR, AMN, SVM, need to be explained.

3.      Line 7, there should be a comma after “college of engineering”

 

4.      Line 520-521, “This makes the tomato impedance spectral line in the same day impedance with the increase in frequency decreases.” This sentence is very hard to understand. Please modify it. 

"In the scanning microscope section, the thickness of the slices, the glutaraldehyde concentration for fixing, the fixing time, the drying process parameters and the coating metal composition need to be specified. "

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please see comments. 

Author Response

We gratefully appreciate for your valuable suggestion. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewer and revised our manuscript accordingly. The manuscript has also been double-checked, and the typos and grammar errors we found have been corrected. We look forward to your information about my revised paper. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Reply:

Major

1. The authors need to explicit that the goal of pressing test is to inflict damage on tomatoes and collect the “actual” data point. The same tomatoes will be used for detection by the BIS method. The authors should incorporate their response #3 into the main text and explain how the 1616 data points were obtained. Here the reviewer has a further clarifying question: When the BIS measurement was conducted, where on the tomato did the authors attach the electrode? Was the electrode placed right on top of the pressed region? Or was the electrode placed randomly? If the electrode is placed close to but not on top of the pressed region, how did the data look like? If the electrode has to be placed on the pressed region to detect damage, this may add to another limitation of this method because the detection is very localized and in order to evaluate a tomato, one has to do many measurements to scan one tomato. If so, the authors may want to mention this in the discussion section.

Reply:

Okay, we do this in line 407 - line 411 of the article to illustrate how to get 1616 data points.

The site of the BIS measurement was the site of compression in the compression experiment, and our aim was to use the electrical impedance technique to measure damage to an artificial tomato that was caused artificially during the experiment. Obviously placing the electrodes in the pressed area to detect the damage may add to the limitations of the method, and we hope that in subsequent work we can explore the pattern of variation in electrical impedance for different measurement points away from the location of the damage and the distance from the damage site, which is illustrated in lines 466 - 470 of the article.

2. The authors provided more information on the four-electrode method and explained its advantages. Ideally, the authors should describe how the electrode was made/produced if the electrode production is not standardized. What is the material for the electrodes? In addition, the authors should describe how the electrode is attached to the tomato. Based on figure 8, the electrode needs to be pressed onto the tomato. Then how much does the pressing force affect the readout? What measures did the authors take to standardize this step?

Reply:

We have explained the electrode again in line x - x of the article. The electrode is attached to the tomato can be seen in Figure 2, in the experiment we need to press the electrode on the tomato to measure it, and we have used a pressure sensor to measure it found that the tomato is basically undamaged when the pressing pressure is less than 20kPa. We use homemade probe measurement to ensure that the same person to use the probe, while using only to ensure that the probe tight (at this time the pressure is less than 20kPa), will not deliberately increase the pressure to press.

 

1. The discrepancy of the number of tomato tested still exist in the text (Line 231).

I found the error and re-corrected it at line 198 of the article.

 

2. Due the rearrangement of the texts, some of the acronyms need to be explained, such as FSR, ANN, SVM.

        FSR has been revised in line 221 of the text, and since he appears only once, the acronym has been deleted. SVM has been revised in line 335 of the text. ANN is described in line 116 of the article.

 

3. Line 7, there should be a comma after “college of engineering”

        We've fixed it.

 

4. Line 520-521, “This makes the tomato impedance spectral line in the same day impedance with the increase in frequency decreases.” This sentence is very hard to understand. Please modify it.

        We have made changes in line 376 of the text.

 

5"In the scanning microscope section, the thickness of the slices, the glutaraldehyde concentration for fixing, the fixing time, the drying process parameters and the coating metal composition need to be specified.

We have added a description of this in line 288 - line 294 of the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf