Problem-Oriented Modelling for Biomedical Engineering Systems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is trying to present the combined problem solving methods in Biomedical Systems. A variety of methods are presented and shown graphically in combination with other methods. 

The function of the defibrillator as a biomedical device is selected to be studied and modeled via described problem solving methods. 

 

To improve the manuscript and make it publishable, the following are recommended: 

 

• Title of the manuscript could be more specific for methods/ models used instead of generalizing it to a problem-oriented modeling approach. In addition, the healthcare sector could be replaced by a biomedical system ( or any specific replacement)  to provide more searchable and approachable functionality. 

• The section 3 : Application of inventive problem solving in the case of defibrillator improves. Regarding this section, it is required to describe and provide with materials/models applied in detailed explanations and developed charts to compare the methods and then, draw a vigorous conclusion

• Conclusion should be more descriptive of the methods used and derived results. It is believed this section requires improvements strongly. Attempt to deliver a specific message on it. This is not a review paper, it is a method applied based paper so it should be discussed accordingly.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

Dear Reviewers,

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Reviewers. Their critical remarks were very reasonable and useful. These comments will be helpful for the authors also in preparing and editing further papers.

Below we present the answers to the Reviewers. For better readability, comments and questions from Reviewers as well as authors' comments and answers are listed in the table.

ANSWERS TO THE REVIEWER 1

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS FROM REVIEWER	AUTHORS' COMMENTS AND ANSWERS
Title of the manuscript could be more specific for methods/ models used instead of generalizing it to a problem-oriented modeling approach. In addition, the healthcare sector could be replaced by a biomedical system ( or any specific replacement)  to provide more searchable and approachable functionality.	The title has been changed to: “Problem-oriented modelling for biomedical engineering systems”.
The section 3: Application of inventive problem solving in the case of defibrillator improves. Regarding this section, it is required to describe and provide with materials/models applied in detailed explanations and developed charts to compare the methods and then, draw a vigorous conclusion.	Thank you for this comment. It is not the aim of this article to compare the effectiveness of different solutions. The paper shows the feasibility of  obtaining these solutions through the possibility of identifying, within the proposed model, a whole range of problems, each of which can be set on its own with the help of previously proposed models. However, we have made other significant changes – the application section (new section 4) is significantly expanded, please see the new text prepared with „track changes”. The color text is the new one, the color crossed text is throw out.
Conclusion should be more descriptive of the methods used and derived results. It is believed this section requires improvements strongly. Attempt to deliver a specific message on it. This is not a review paper, it is a method applied based paper so it should be discussed accordingly.	Conclusions have been improved. A paragraph has been added: “The advantage of the proposed method is the possibility within just one model to extend the range of problems, the solution of which, using methods specific to each type of problem or a combination of them, can provide the desired result. Analysis of the problem regarding the contradictory demands on the shape and energy of the defibrillator pulse from the perspectives of the patient reviving and burns confirms the effectiveness of the proposed model.”

 Sincerely yours,

on behalf of the all co-authors

Olga Szlachetka

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper addresses an interesting question and an important problem related to the representation of problems to transform unsatisfactory system models into systems that meet the objectives. The introduction is well written and the state of the art interesting. It focuses on a single family of problem representation methods related to the function and on a type of application whereas the problem is general and is not limited to the field of application.

However, the rest of the paper does not have the structure of a scientific paper and does not meet the expectations of the reader following the introduction.

The introduction is followed by a bibliographic synthesis of various methods of representing problems essentially graphically in a section entitled "Materials and methods". This section could be entitled "Background" or "literature review". If this section includes a new representation (the aggregated representation) it should be put in another section as a proposal for a new representation. The section shows with examples how to integrate various representations. The contribution of the paper is not clear, it should be made explicit. What is the added value? Another way to present this section without chaging dramaticaaly the content ( if the integration of models towards the final integrated model is the added value) could be a title and some introduction lines, expressing that the purpose of the section is to illustrate this integration.

The application section is disconnected from the expected contribution of the paper. It should illustrate the representation of the new model on a case and at least discuss (or give feedback on) the interest of this representation compared to the other representations presented in section 2. What does the aggregation or the aggregated model bring compared to the separate models? Indeed, in design, multiple views are usual. The various non-aggregated models allow to solve the cases presented.  Thus ,to valorize this interesting work, it is necessary to add a part that discusses the interest and the limits of the proposed model.

The title does not match the content of the article. In which way is the proposed representation limited to the health domain? If you want to keep the title discuss the area of application of the method in the discussion part.

Author Response

Dear Editor,

Dear Reviewers,

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Reviewers. Their critical remarks were very reasonable and useful. These comments will be helpful for the authors also in preparing and editing further papers.

Below we present the answers to the Reviewers. For better readability, comments and questions from Reviewers as well as authors' comments and answers are listed in the table.

ANSWERS TO THE REVIEWER 2

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS FROM REVIEWER	AUTHORS' COMMENTS AND ANSWERS
The introduction is well written and the state of the art interesting. It focuses on a single family of problem representation methods related to the function and on a type of application whereas the problem is general and is not limited to the field of application. However, the rest of the paper does not have the structure of a scientific paper and does not meet the expectations of the reader following the introduction. The introduction is followed by a bibliographic synthesis of various methods of representing problems essentially graphically in a section entitled "Materials and methods". This section could be entitled "Background" or "literature review". If this section includes a new representation (the aggregated representation) it should be put in another section as a proposal for a new representation. The section shows with examples how to integrate various representations. The contribution of the paper is not clear, it should be made explicit. What is the added value? Another way to present this section without chaging dramaticaaly the content ( if the integration of models towards the final integrated model is the added value) could be a title and some introduction lines, expressing that the purpose of the section is to illustrate this integration.	Thank you for the comment. We have taken your suggestion and separated Section 2 into two separate parts: “Background” and “Proposed expanded triad model”. The contribution of the paper is shown in section 3, and sections 4 and 5 are significantly modified and expanded. In section 3 the application of the model to inventive problem solving in the case of defibrillator improvement, presenting the expanded triad model for this problem on graph 9 and describing it in text (see page 14) were showed. We have supplemented the previously presented solutions in Section 3 with information on possible modifications to the proposed added described solution. We have also added 10 new solution possibilities resulting from modifications of the presented model, which are supported by references to literature (mainly patents). (see page 15-16). Please see the new text prepared with „track changes”. The color text is the new one, the color crossed text is throw out.
The application section is disconnected from the expected contribution of the paper. It should illustrate the representation of the new model on a case and at least discuss (or give feedback on) the interest of this representation compared to the other representations presented in section 2. What does the aggregation or the aggregated model bring compared to the separate models?	The old section 3 (new section 4) is significantly expanded. The model diagram (fig.9) is added. The illustration of the representation of the new model on a defibrillator case is provided (see pp. 13 – 16). Please see the new text prepared with „track changes”. The color text is the new one, the color crossed text is throw out.
Indeed, in design, multiple views are usual. The various non-aggregated models allow to solve the cases presented.  Thus, to valorize this interesting work, it is necessary to add a part that discusses the interest and the limits of the proposed model.	We added in the conclusions the advantages of the method.
The title does not match the content of the article. In which way is the proposed representation limited to the health domain? If you want to keep the title discuss the area of application of the method in the discussion part.	The title has been changed to: Problem-oriented modelling for biomedical engineering systems.

 

Sincerely yours,

on behalf of the all co-authors

Olga Szlachetka

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

 To be clarified : Line 383 : in figure 6 key : “Sₑn₁”: there is no Sen1 in the figure.

 

The paper has been improved taking into account the comments of version 1.

The contribution, which is a mode of representation of the problems in line with the approaches resulting from the TRIZ, is well explained provided that the reader is familiar with the tools integrated in this model. This point is a limitation of the contribution which is addressed to experts. Indeed, the representation is probably more complicated to apprehend for non-expert users, but it can improve the problem solving performances for a user mastering the integrated concepts. 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments, below are the responses to those comments.

Responses  comment 1: Obviously, this is an error in the signature. It should be "Sen" and this has been changed in the caption of Figure 6.

Responses  comment 2:  We agree with the reviewer's opinion that the article is specialized and not popular science, and that it is mainly aimed at experts in the field.

Presenting a full representation for a specific case is impossible here because it will take up too much space and will take the form of a didactic dissertation, and this was not the concept behind our work.

Our goal was to present to the community of research experts in the field an original approach to solving application problems. At the same time, the first part of the work is more of an overview, so that a reader unfamiliar with the subject matter would be interested enough to reach for other publications in the field and see the beauty of methods derived from TRIZ, which have wide application in different areas. 

Additional corrections:

We have made some more minor spelling corrections:

1. on page 9 in the 2nd line of section 2.7 in Sp≡S0, "p" and "0" were changed to subscript.
2. in the caption of figure 6 - instead of "triada" we gave "triad".
3. in the caption of figure 8, the repeated word "with" was deleted.

Once again, thank you for your comments, which helped to improve the article.

Sincerely

on behalf of the authors,

Olga Szlachetka