Contextual Comparative Analysis of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa Port Performance by Using a Hybrid DEA(CVA) Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
1. The Introduction Section should be thoroughly revised. The content is briefly written and there is no coherency in the text.
2. Line 25; it is a bit early to provide the objective of this study in the first paragraph. First, the motivation and problem statement should be clearly addressed.
3. Line 26; what does “contextual comparative analysis” mean? What is “context” in this subject? More explanation should be provided in the first paragraph.
4. Line 29, 150, 191, etc; make sure the references, figures, and tables numbers are complete and appropriately cited in the text.
5. All the figures should be mentioned and described in the text.
6. Figure 1; the authors should provide appropriate legend, scale bar, and geographical coordinates around the map. It is better to use the Shapefile of the study area in QGIS or ArcGIS software and depict the figure.
7. Line 88; please specifically mention the deficiencies of previous research in terms of methodology AND specific characteristics. Such a sentence is generic and vague.
8. Section 2; each sub-section is composed of a large paragraph. Each can be divided into a few paragraphs according to the relevant content.
9. Line 147; the link or address of the data source should be mentioned.
10. Section 3.2; depicting a flowchart can better describe the procedure. Meanwhile, there is duplicate material in this these paragraphs.
11. Line 166; by external factors do the authors mean contextual information? Please exemplify.
12. All the equations should be numbered and called in the text as well.
13. Line 184-192 is useless. The equation per se is clear.
14. What is Equation 1? What does each component mean?
15. Table 2 is useless. The normalized values are not important. Meanwhile, the results of any kind should not be provided in the methodology Section. By the way, why are these values all below 0.4 and there is no value close to 1?
16. DEA is once mentioned in lines 159-179 and one time in lines 195-210. This information can be union.
17. Line 214; Chames et al.? Reference?
18. Line 217; what is DMU? It should be extended and described for the first time.
19. Section 3.4.1; the procedure and all the equations are unclear and not understandable.
20. Section 4; the achieved results are not surprising and conclusive.
21. The manuscript should have a Discussion Section and present principles, relationships, and generalizations shown by the results, discuss the significance of the results, show how the results agree or disagree with previously published works, and point out exceptions, lack of correlations, and limitations.
22. The conclusion Section is very long. The authors should concisely provide the main objective(s) of the research, a very brief summary of the Results and Discussion, emphasize the implications of the findings, and a future perspective on the work
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Several editorial mistakes and typos are in the manuscript. It should be edited by a native English-speaking editor.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions. Your input has significantly enhanced the quality of our paper. For your convenience, we have incorporated a Word document file detailing how we have addressed each of your comments and suggestions.
Thank you once again for your thoughtful feedback.
Best regards,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
REVIEW COMMENTS
Title: Contextual Comparative analysis of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa Port performance by using hybrid DEA(CVA) modal
Ref: logistics-2479513
· In Abstract, line 5: “By considering multiple inputs and outputs, the efficiency scores of the ports were calculated-------Author should brief what are the inputs and outputs…
· Line 26: “contextual comparative analysis”--------proper citation could be given for the first time use in Introduction.
· Line 45:” Contextual Value Added Approach (CVA).” Appropriate citation should be made.
· Line 49: “objectives of this research are to conduct a contextual comparative analysis”
Starting with capital letter must be maintained in a sentence----Kindly check for consistency.
· Page 3, line 101---“Window Analysis”---- any reference?
· Sec 3.3, line184-192, The English must be checked thoroughly,
· The notations used for equations and other parameters must be clearly given
· Table 2, “normalized data”-------Author should follow the guidelines (ex. Capital letters)
· Line 224: “The Chames et al. essay’------Proper citation number should be given
· Page 7, Equation number for the following must be given
Virtualinput=vixio+⋯+vmxmo
Virtualoutput=uiyio+⋯+usyso.
𝑽𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒑𝒖𝒕 ÷ 𝑽𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒑𝒖𝒕.
· Table number must be given inside the text also to correlate which table you are explaining.
( for example line number 150,307, 318 )
· All figure must be explained using “Figure numbers” inside the text throughout the paper.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
English Must be improved..
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions. Your input has significantly enhanced the quality of our paper. For your convenience, we have incorporated a Word document file detailing how we have addressed each of your comments and suggestions.
Thank you once again for your thoughtful feedback.
Best regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Please see the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions. Your input has significantly enhanced the quality of our paper. For your convenience, we have incorporated a Word document file detailing how we have addressed each of your comments and suggestions.
Thank you once again for your thoughtful feedback.
Best regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Please see the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Please see the attached file.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions. Your input has significantly enhanced the quality of our paper. For your convenience, we have incorporated a Word document file detailing how we have addressed each of your comments and suggestions.
Thank you once again for your thoughtful feedback.
Best regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The majority of the comments have been addressed. However, the authors are suggested to:
1-Provide a legend for Figure 1 and indicate the meaning of dash-lines in different colors.
2-There are a few references that are not appropriately mentioned in the manuscript; for example line 447.
3-The authors should compare the findings with other research in the literature in the Discussion Section.
4-The Discussion Section is too short while the Conclusion Section is too long. It is not normal to provide a sub-section in the Conclusion Section.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Moderate editing of the English language is required.
Author Response
Subject: Revisions Made as Per Your Comments - See Attached File
Dear Reviewer,
We've made revisions to the manuscript based on your comments. Please find the attached file to review our responses and changes.
Best regards,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The new version improves the paper's quality. Some problems remain in relation to the problem and method descriptions.
In relation to the problem description, I suggest the authors to consider the external interaction of the port withe near territory (see suggested reference)
In relation to the method description, I suggest the authors to recall the compact DEA description reported in the suggested reference.
Please, follow the guidelines of the journal for formatting the final version of the paper. For instance, the sentence at row 112 cannot begin with a a reference without a name ([11] must be Lin et al [11])
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We've made revisions to the manuscript based on your comments. Please find the attached file to review our responses and changes.
Best regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Please see my comments in the attached file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Please see my comments in the attached file
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We've made revisions to the manuscript based on your comments. Please find the attached file to review our responses and changes.
Best regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
