Numerical Study of a Customized Transtibial Prosthesis Based on an Analytical Design under a Flex-Foot^® Variflex^® Architecture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments:

This study is an interesting one, but there are some major errors or mistakes. Basically, the equations are presented at the wrong way. I am not sure if the equations could produce the results, and therefore, cannot go on reading remained text, although the paper would be very good one.

Major concerns

• Equation (2) and Figure 8 have something wrong or to be clarified: N is stress and thus is not equal to F (force); Am has not been defined, x direction has not been defined, F*Lmax is not bending moment while Fr*Lmax is; it is not clear if A and rAm or RA have the same unit.
• In Equation (3), V, M, M0, PR have not been defined.

 

Author Response

REPLY TO REVIEWERS

 

Journal: Young Zhang

Title: Numerical study of a customized transtibial prosthesis, based on an analytical design under a flex-foot® - variflex® architecture

Manuscript ID: applsci-807073 - Major Revisions

Date of reply: 24/05/2020

Author for correspondence: Christopher René Torres San Miguel

Email address: [email protected]

Authors: Marco Antonio Hernández-Acosta, Christopher René Torres-SanMiguel, Armando Josue Piña-Diaz, Juan Carlos Paredes-Rojas, Luis Antonio Aguilar-Perez, Guillermo Urriolagoitia-Sosa.

 

We thank the reviewers for their valuable remarks.

 

Please, find below answers to the reviewers’ comments concerning reviewers’ comments sets. Also, we made an extensive edition in order to verify typo or misspelling errors. Nevertheless, if you consider that this scientific report needs English editing again we do not have any inconvenience to cover the extra payment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents a methodology to design a personalized transtibial prosthesis following the guidelines proposed by Özkaya and Nordin [21], performed analysis and conduct validation by using analytical methods and numerical simulation. It describes the analysis of angular relationships between joints, moments and reaction forces in the human gait cycle from video.

Comments:

Major concerns:

1. A video of gait cycle and Tracker® software are used to extract gait information. The extracted angles signal from knee and ankles are different from other researches. Motion Capture Systems such as Qualisys or Vicon have sophisticated software to extract gait parameters. As the extracted signal from Tracker® software shows different from current literature, the reliability of using this is in question. Authors need to address this issue.
2. The validation is conducted against numerical analysis. A comparison of the existing system will also provide insightful information.
3. The study has limitations which have not mentioned.
4. This research uses human subjects which requires ethical consideration.

Minor concerns:

5. Page 4, Line 145: “Dempster diagrams are employed [35]” The reference is missing in the Reference list.
6. Page 5, Line 151: “Wc = 68,474 Kg is the total weight of the body to the knee,” The marker of Wc is missing in Figure 5.
7. Page 10, Figure 14: B shows the same caption as A. Please check
8. The flexion angles of the knee joint during heel strike phase shows different from other literature e.g. Ardestani, Marzieh M., et al. "TKA patients with unsatisfying knee function show changes in neuromotor synergy pattern but not joint biomechanics." Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology 37 (2017): 90-100.
9. The flexion angles of the ankle joint signal shows different from other literature
10. “Figure 15 shows vertical displacements obtained from coordinates and distances between joints; maximum vertical displacement of 7.755 cm (hip), of 7.476 cm (knee) and of 12.009 cm (ankle) are observed.” I do not see the displacement information from Figure 15 rather than angles in degrees.
11. “The parameters obtained from both knee and ankle flexion angles are shown in Figures 15 and 16”, looking those two figures, it does not seem the angles presented in Figure 16 are similar in Figure 15

Author Response

REPLY TO REVIEWERS

 

Journal: Young Zhang

Title: Numerical study of a customized transtibial prosthesis, based on an analytical design under a flex-foot® - variflex® architecture

Manuscript ID: applsci-807073 - Major Revisions

Date of reply: 24/05/2020

Author for correspondence: Christopher René Torres San Miguel

Email address: [email protected]

Authors: Marco Antonio Hernández-Acosta, Christopher René Torres-SanMiguel, Armando Josue Piña-Diaz, Juan Carlos Paredes-Rojas, Luis Antonio Aguilar-Perez, Guillermo Urriolagoitia-Sosa.

 

We thank the reviewers for their valuable remarks.

 

Please, find below answers to the reviewers’ comments concerning reviewers’ comments sets. Also, we made an extensive edition in order to verify typo or misspelling errors. Nevertheless, if you consider that this scientific report needs English editing again we do not have any inconvenience to cover the extra payment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

ok now

Author Response

Dear reviewer
many thanks for feedback

We thank the reviewer for their valuable remarks.
Please, find below final verison with an extensive edition of typo or misspelling errors. Also, we request and send our research to the English language editor in the MDPI system and add the granted certificate of proofreading.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors agree with the concerns that I raised and could not address all to improve the quality of the paper. I believe that the paper at this current state is missing scientific and technical aspect which will raise question in scientific community. Therefore, I am reluctant to say that I would like to reject the paper for this journal.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks for feedback

We thank the reviewer for their valuable remarks.

Please, find below the answers to the reviewer’s comments. Also, we made an extensive edition to verify typo or misspelling errors. Also, we request and send our research to the English language editor in the MDPI system and add the granted certificate of proofreading.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf