Evaluation of Parallel Computing on MPI Version PHITS Code
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript has focused on the Evaluation of Parallel Computing for PHITS code. The study is on the development of PHITS code. It is not a scientific study. It would be more appropriate to evaluate it as a proceedings.
Author Response
It is true we focused on Evaluation of Parallel Computing for PHITS code. We will go over whether this manuscript is being submitted as article or proceedings. Thank you.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors
There are some English typos like a
throughout tools--->it through the tools
this also require---> this also requires
obtain absorbed dose-->obtain an absorbed dose
field size at depth of-->field sizes at acdepth of
100 mm, 200 mm, respectively,--->100 mm, and 200 mm, respectively,
Here, we have Amdahl's and Amdahl’s. You used two different styles of apostrophes or quotation marks in your document.
Both styles are acceptable, but it's best to be consistent.
whoever interested--->whoever is interested
processed in parallels---> processed in parallel
The authors used Monte Carlo method to evaluate the dose distribution of
complex structures by simulating radiation behavior.
This work has its relevance and the results are well founded. Therefore, I recommend this one for publication after removing typos in writing.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1. The authors do not discuss (or do too briefly) the general structure of the code and the use of MPI. It is not clear what the communication scheme between the processors looks like. Therefore, the article should be supplemented with a presentation of the general structure of the code (with particular emphasis on MPI).
2. The results of the experiments relate to a rather outdated computer architecture and the number of used processors is relatively small to fully assess the scalability (strong and weak). Also, NEXT-504N allows 100 Mbit/s connectivity only. What about 1 Gbit/s interconnection network? Would it improve the performance?
3. The quality of figures (i.e. resolution) could be improved.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The study does not have the scientific qualification to be accepted in the journal.
The main questions of this manuscript is the Evaluation of Parallel Computing for PHITS code. The topic is original however it is not scientific. The authors focused on improving the PHITS code. The text is clear and easy to read. It can be considered as a conference paper, not a research article.
Author Response
We’ve been recheck the manuscript. This manuscript dealt with improvement of calculation speed on PHITS code. Several factors have been considered and evaluated through various experiment. There are reasons for our manuscript is qualified as article, a) evaluation of PHITS code on cluster via MPI protocol has not been conducted; b) different approach with previous research is adopted; c) the result analyzed through parallelization principle and further improvement suggested. From those reason, we was wondering if you could make reconsideration on previous comment.
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have implemented my suggestions #1 and #3.
Author Response
Suggested points by reviewer have been improved. And probability of further study has also been proposed on previous round.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Revisions to the article did not change my opinion.
