Application of Computer Microtomography and Hyperspectral Imaging to Assess the Homogeneity of the Distribution of Active Ingredients in Functional Food
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The application of well-known methods of analysis to the issue of chocolate chemical distribution is certainly of interest (who doesn't like chocolate at a point in their life, aside from the regulatory agencies). However, there a re serious flaws with the draft:
1. The authors claim low cost methods - how is tomography low cost? Especially when venturing in the 3D micro-tomography scanners.
2. The authors claim to introduce methods - these are well-known methods. At best, the authors can claim interesting application and approach to problem solution.
3. The figures are woefully insufficient and some are low quality. The analysis of these figures is virtually non-existent (the captions tell more than the figure referral in the text).
4. While an interesting application, with only five samples, this study design is not ready for publication. Additional data is needed, along with illustrations, and in-depth analysis of appearance of components and their distribution.
5. The authors should not use abbreviations in the Abstract.
6. Finally, in places the language needs simple revisions (mostly plural vs singular, an incorrect tense, etc.).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
I am very grateful for the valuable opinions and remarks. I agree with all the comments and I have referred to them as best as possible in a revised version of the manuscript. List of corrections is presented below.
- The authors claim low cost methods - how is tomography low cost? Especially when venturing in the 3D micro-tomography scanners.
Of course, he agrees with the Reviewer's opinion that the cost of a microtomograph is very high. In this context, it is difficult to call a low-cost method. However, the intention of the authors was to point out that the commercial cost of testing several samples simultaneously (even up to 10) in a high-resolution microtomograph ranges from $ 1,000 to $ 2,000. Taking into account other alternative methods of analysis consisting in sampling the volume of chocolate and determining the content of active substances by chemical analysis methods - e.g. mass spectroscopy, the cost of such a test is much lower. Hence the authors made such a conclusion.
To clarify the intentions of the authors, the text was supplemented with (line 50 - 53): Indicating that the proposed methodology is low-cost, it should be compared to alternative methods, i.e. mass spectroscopy, where in order to assess the homogeneity of API distribution, it is necessary to perform several / several dozen tests of a single sample.
- The authors claim to introduce methods - these are well-known methods. At best, the authors can claim interesting application and approach to problem solution.
The authors pointed out why chocolate is a difficult product to contain API. This difficulty forced the search for new methods of analysis (line 69-73). We agree with the reviewer's suggestion that the authors do not implement the new method, which was supplemented in the text (line 133–134).
- The figures are woefully insufficient and some are low quality. The analysis of these figures is virtually non-existent (the captions tell more than the figure referral in the text).
The quality of figures has been improved.
- While an interesting application, with only five samples, this study design is not ready for publication. Additional data is needed, along with illustrations, and in-depth analysis of appearance of components and their distribution.
The manuscript was supplemented with explanations regarding the application of the proposed method and 3 figures were added to better illustrate the method used (Lines 173-188, Figures 1-3).
- The authors should not use abbreviations in the Abstract.
Abbreviations have been removed from the abstract.
- Finally, in places the language needs simple revisions (mostly plural vs singular, an incorrect tense, etc.).
Language errors have been corrected.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled "Application of computer microtomography supported by methods of image analysis and processing to assess the homogeneity
of the distribution of active ingredients in functional food" presents an interesting topic, but before publishing, I would like to mention o list of improvements and recommendations:
- the scientific soundness is acceptable, with only minor spell checks required. For example, the first sentence in the abstract needs to be corrected.
- Why do you consider chocolate the most commonly used product for enrichment in active ingredients? Have you done a literature review on this? To justify the choice it would be useful to give some examples of studies on this topic.
- Line 32-34:"The largest functional food market are the
United States, followed by Japan and Canada, where the value of the Canadian functional food industry is $ 50 billion [4]" The cited references is from 2016... you must update the info. - The discussion section contains general information. Most of this information would be appropriate for the introductory section (which should also contain more information about the techniques used in other studies). Discussions should refer as much as possible to the results obtained in the experiment and how to validate them (which is insufficiently treated). The same problem is with the conclusions that must emphasise the results obtained in the simulation and the degree of efficiency of the method.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
I am very grateful for the valuable opinions and remarks. I agree with all the comments and I have referred to them as best as possible in a revised version of the manuscript. List of corrections is presented below:
The manuscript entitled "Application of computer microtomography supported by methods of image analysis and processing to assess the homogeneity of the distribution of active ingredients in functional food" presents an interesting topic, but before publishing, I would like to mention o list of improvements and recommendations:
the scientific soundness is acceptable, with only minor spell checks required. For example, the first sentence in the abstract needs to be corrected.
Corrected.
Why do you consider chocolate the most commonly used product for enrichment in active ingredients? Have you done a literature review on this? To justify the choice it would be useful to give some examples of studies on this topic.
The authors pointed out why chocolate is a difficult product to contain API. This difficulty forced the search for new methods of analysis (line 69-73).
Line 32-34:"The largest functional food market are the United States, followed by Japan and Canada, where the value of the Canadian functional food industry is $ 50 billion [4]" The cited references is from 2016... you must update the info.
Updated the info.
The discussion section contains general information. Most of this information would be appropriate for the introductory section (which should also contain more information about the techniques used in other studies).
The manuscript was supplemented with explanations regarding the application of the proposed method and 3 figures were added to better illustrate the method used (Lines 173-188, Figures 1-3).
Discussions should refer as much as possible to the results obtained in the experiment and how to validate them (which is insufficiently treated).
Sections of discussion directly related to the results obtained have been added (Lines 288-292, lines 317-323, lines 332-336).
The same problem is with the conclusions that must emphasise the results obtained in the simulation and the degree of efficiency of the method.
Conclusions directly related to the obtained results have been added (Lines 359-361).
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
While the revisions are acknowledged, it seems the draft is submitted with track changes on, leaving the redacted text in. Aside from lessened readability, it is not clear why the table numbers have been shortened (especially since rounding is not uniform). The novelty claim about the well-know algorithms is still present - in the Abstract and further in the text. In the haste of revising, the authors have introduced long run-in sentences where clarity is obscured and the subject is blurred - page 2 lines 50-54, same page lines 69-73. While the previous language comment has been accounted for, new problems are ushered in some of the new passages. Some abbreviations (e.g. API) still plague the Abstract. The proposed algorithms are not new (line 13 in the Abstract). The authors need to restructure the draft to bring to light the true significance of the work.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely thank you for all your comments that have certainly contributed to the higher scientific value of the manuscript. In the revised version of the manuscript, we tried to remove all its flaws listed by the Reviewer. In order to improve the scientific quality of the manuscript, we also decided to add an extensive fragment on the use of hyperspectral imaging in order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed microtomographic methods.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article has been improved in accordance with the initial recommendations.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely thank you for the review. Your suggestions certainly contributed to the higher scientific value of the manuscript. In the revised version of the manuscript, we tried to remove all its flaws listed by the Reviewer. In order to improve the scientific quality of the manuscript, we also decided to add an extensive fragment on the use of hyperspectral imaging in order to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed microtomographic methods.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
