P System with Fractional Reduction

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Two traditional algorithms to reduce fractions (and being able to represent numbers by decimals, which are fundamental operations in numerical computation) are combined as well as improved in their parallelisation within a novel P system Pi3, obtained by two components Pi1 and Pi2 (designed according the two algorithms). The model Pi1 is here introduced, described in detail in Section 4, and tested from a computational viewpoint, by means of numerical experiments which have been statistically evaluated in the last Section 5. An extensive introduction to the literature of membrane computing (Sections 1 and 2) and to the problem formalisation (Section 3) help the reader to understand the whole computation realised by the P system.

 

The paper is original, interesting, sound, and very well written, enough to afford the long reading and to catch the essence of a large amount of details. Flowcharts are appropriately placed in the paper to figure out the concepts explained in the text. 

 

Minor improvements suggested by this reviewer are listed in the following:

 

1) Abstract, last line: an “s” should be added to “three P system”

 

2) More references should be cited, according to all the topics considered in the paper. For example, I would be required to cite reference papers in lines 48-52 (namely, in which papers membrane computing entered biological laboratories?) and everywhere some concept from the literature is reported as a matter of fact.

 

3) Section 2, line 71. The word “uncertainty” is usually associated to probabilistic spaces, which are not involved by the traditional model of P system. In this context, actually “non determinism” is used.

 

4) Narrative of section 4 is not easy to follow: in line 1065, what means “c evolves to (multisite, in line 1081) kei”? In line 1126, what means “median simplification result k1 and l1” (was the meaning of this operation defined or explained?)

 

5) The performance improvement of the algorithms with respect to the traditional literature where they have been implemented (where?) should be better discussed. This is an important improvement to be able to appreciate the additional value of this paper in the literature.

 

6) Maybe Table 3 and other accessory details may be reported in an appendix of the article, to reduce It into a more reasonable length and make it easier to read. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. it was mentioned that some scholars have investigated the problem of fractional simplification. however, the author only mentioned [14].

2. the author mentioned about making the process of arithmetic operations easier and the results more accurate. however, no references were used to justify such issues are important.

3. please provide more analysis on "when the parameter ξ value is 8, the steps required for the UPS experiment are the least, while the larger the parameter ξ value, the more steps required for the UPS experiment". Why does it happen?

4. please elaborate the term efficiency for the mentioned case. what are the indicators and variables? what are the standards?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

the revision is now sufficient enough for next step for publication.