The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of information technology (IT) capability on firm growth in the context of open technological innovation. The paper utilized a logical deductive approach to develop hypotheses and analytical frameworks, and collected empirical data from 256 Chinese new ventures. Regression analysis and structural equation models were used to test the hypotheses and analyze the data. The results showed that IT capability, including flexibility and integration of information technology, significantly influenced firm growth, and open technological innovation partially mediated the relationship between IT flexibility and firm growth, and significantly mediated the relationship between IT integration and firm growth. The paper’s limitations include the cross-sectional design, limited sample size, and potential unobserved variables such as organizational learning that could affect the relationship between IT capability and firm growth. The research is the first to investigate the effects of IT capability on firm growth based on the mediation of open technological innovation in China, contributing to the literature on IT capability and providing insights for managerial practice in the sharing economy era. In 2021, China adopted and implemented the “14th Five-Year Plan” to guide its economic development and the growth of firms over the next five years. This plan identifies “information technology,” “innovation,” and “entrepreneurship” as key drivers of economic growth, and places a strong emphasis on encouraging business innovation and supporting the formation and growth of new firms. Encouraging self-employment has emerged as a primary strategy to address the talent employment problem and promote stable economic growth and market economic vitality. In this context, new ventures play a crucial role in providing employment opportunities and promoting technological innovation, as well as contributing to social and economic development Reviewers' comments:Reviewer's Responses to Questions  Comments to the Author1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?  The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: PartlyReviewer #2: YesReviewer #3: Partly**********  2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?   Reviewer #1: NoReviewer #2: YesReviewer #3: No**********  3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.  The Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: YesReviewer #3: Yes**********  4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?  PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #2: YesReviewer #3: Yes**********  5. Review Comments to the Author  Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. Reviewer #1: The authors' contribution is valuable and much appreciated, however, the manuscript needs some improvements as suggested below:1. Research Hypotheses: Logically there should be one more hypothesis for Open Technological Innovation and Firm Growth. In order to assess the mediation of Open Tech Innovation between the independent and dependent variables, the direct relationship between the mediator and the dependent variable must be examined first, and it should be statistically significant before assessing the indirect effect. Thus, it is mandatory to have an hypothesis to test the direct effect of mediator on dependent variable.2. Validity and Reliability: Though authors provided content validity and reliability statistics, it is desired to provide convergent and discriminant validity statistics as they are core components are scale validity in Structural Equation Modeling.3. The provided datafile seems corrupt showing random symbols instead of the data.Reviewer #2: PLOS ONEInformation Technology Capability, Open Technological Innovation and Firm GrowthManuscript Number: PONE-D-22-14268Introduction and literature reviewIndeed, the introduction to this article is very well written, but I have a few recommendations for you that must be implemented.i.The introduction section must offer the study gap and objectives of the study.ii.Highlight current work contributions.iii.The selection of variables for the current study must be elaborated briefly.iv.Recent evidence should be presented to support the study's hypotheses.v.“On the other hand, novelty is essential for overcoming resource constraints and establishing a competitive advantage ” Pay attention to citations; it is not necessary to bring up unrelated facts.vi.Relevant references, including introduction, literature review, and hypothesis development, must be from within the last five years, except for theories and books.Conceptual modeli.I would recommend that you create a table before the research framework and mention previous studies from the last five years, including methodology, variables, and countries, and then draw your research gap.Methodologyi.In the field of social studies, is a sample size of 28.7 percent acceptable? strengthen your argument with references to pertinent sources.ii.Sample size calculation must be performed and reported with the use of Gpower 3.1 software.Variables and measuresCreate a table for variables and mentions, variable names, number of items, and previous authors.Variables No. of itemsAuthor's (previous authors)Discussion and Conclusioni.Compare the results of your study with previous studies in the discussion and conclusion section.ii.Contributions and limitation & future research should be inline.Reviewer #3: The above points are fundamental and need to be addressed very carefully. I would strongly encourage the author(s) to take ample time to rethink their study, read more papers from good and reputed journals and try to completely re-write their study.**********  6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.  Reviewer #1: NoReviewer #2: NoReviewer #3: No**********https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, AttachmentPONE-D-22-14268_reviewer.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file.AttachmentReferee Report Plos One.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file. 22 Mar 2023Response to ReviewersDear Editor and Reviewers:Thank you for your letter and the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript titled “Information Technology Capability, Open Technological Innovation and Firm Growth” (ID: PONE-D-22-14268). We appreciate the valuable and constructive comments, which have guided us to improve and refine our paper. We have meticulously reviewed the suggestions and incorporated the necessary changes, which are highlighted in blue throughout the revised paper. The major revisions made in the manuscript in response to the reviewers’ comments are outlined below:Responds to the reviewers’ comments:Reviewer: 1The authors’ contribution is valuable and much appreciated, however, the manuscript needs some improvements as suggested below:Comments:1. Research Hypotheses: Logically there should be one more hypothesis for Open Technological Innovation and Firm Growth. In order to assess the mediation of Open Tech Innovation between the independent and dependent variables, the direct relationship between the mediator and the dependent variable must be examined first, and it should be statistically significant before assessing the indirect effect. Thus, it is mandatory to have an hypothesis to test the direct effect of mediator on dependent variable.Reply: We appreciate your suggestion. In this paper, we have adopted the Baron & Kenny (1986) method and utilized the stepwise test regression coefficient to examine the mediating effect. The first step involves testing the overall impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable, followed by assessing the connection between the independent variable and the mediator variable in the second step. Finally, the third step involves evaluating the influence of both the independent and mediator variables on the dependent variable. Consequently, this paper does not examine the link between the mediator variable  and the dependent variable .2. Validity and Reliability: Though authors provided content validity and reliability statistics, it is desired to provide convergent and discriminant validity statistics as they are core components are scale validity in Structural Equation Modeling.Reply: As suggested by the reviewer, we have added the convergent and discriminant validity statistics to support reliability and validity test.(Please see the blue font on page 11 in Section 4.1)“4.1 Reliability and validityTo ensure the proposed model’s quality, it must be both statistically reliable and valid. Reliability means producing similar results across multiple tests under the same conditions. Cronbach’s alpha is a widely used measure of reliability, and in this study, three measures were examined. The obtained values of 0.826, 0.784, and 0.780, respectively, all higher than 0.75, indicating high reliability of the proposed model.The validity of an analysis refers to the degree to which it accurately represents the intended information. Validity can be analyzed through content and construct validity analysis methods. Content validity evaluates the extent to which the questionnaire items accurately reflect the intended content. In this study, the questionnaire items were primarily drawn from the maturity scale, which had been reviewed and revised by the research team’s professor. During the pilot test, no reports of misunderstandings were received, and interviewees indicated that the items were easy to understand, indicating satisfactory content validity. .The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a powerful method used to assess construct validity. According to Campbell and Fiske’s seminal work (1959), construct validity research typically examines the degree to which data provide, including convergent validity and discriminant validity.Table II presents the results of the CFA for assessing convergent validity. All factor loadings were significant and exceeded the recommended threshold of 0.5 , indicating strong convergent validity. To assess the model fit, several well-established goodness-of-fit indices were utilized, including the normed chi-square (χ2/df), the goodness-of-fit index (GFI), the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) . In the measurement model, all indices exceeded their recommended thresholds, indicating sufficient construct validity.Discriminant validity is demonstrated when the square root of the average variance extracted (AVE) for a construct is greater than the corresponding inter-construct correlations. As Table III indicates, the square root of the AVE for each variable exceeded the intercorrelations, indicating sufficient discriminant validity.Table II. Convergent validity of the measurement modelVariable AVE CRIT flexibility (ITF) 0.560 0.835IT integration (ITI) 0.532 0.771Open technological innovation (OTI) 0.557 0.789  2/df=2.768 (＜3); GFI＞0.9; AGFI＞0.9; RMSEA＜0.05Notes: AVE is the average variance extracted; CR is the critical ratio; goodness-of-fit indices and recommended thresholds �Table III. Discriminant validity of the measurement modelVariable ITF ITI OTIIT flexibility (ITF) 0.749 IT integration (ITI) 0.528 0.729 Open technological innovation (OTI) 0.446 0.416 0.746Note: The square root of the AVE as a criteria”3. The provided datafile seems corrupt showing random symbols instead of the data.Reply: Thanks for your careful checks. We are sorry for our carelessness. Based on your comments, we have re-uploaded the data. Reviewer: 2Comments:1. Introduction and literature reviewIndeed, the introduction to this article is very well written, but I have a few recommendations for you that must be implemented.i. The introduction section must offer the study gap and objectives of the study.Reply: We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. As you suggest, we strengthen the description of study gap and objectives of the study.“Previous research has largely focused on the impact of resource constraints on the growth of new ventures, which is a crucial concern . However, while resource constraints are undoubtedly a significant challenge for new ventures, there may be other factors that affect the performance and growth of firms that have not been fully explored. One of these factors could be the relationship between IT capability and performance.There have been several studies investigating the link between IT capability and firm performance, but the results have been inconclusive. Some studies have shown a positive relationship between IT capability and firm performance , while others have reported a no relationship . These mixed results suggest that there may be some missing links in the relationship between IT capability and firm performance that have not been fully explored.Therefore, this study aims to examine the influence of open technological innovation, which is one of the potential mediators, in the relationship between IT capability and firm growth. Open technological innovation refers to the use of external knowledge and resources to develop new products, services, and processes. The study will investigate whether open technological innovation can serve as a mediator between IT capability and firm growth, filling the gap in the existing literature.”(Please see the blue font on page 3 in Section 1)ii. Highlight current work contributions.Reply: Thanks for your insight! As your suggestion, we have explicitly outlined the contributions of our current work.“This study contributes to the literature in three ways. Firstly, it explores the relationship between IT capability and firm growth, expanding the current research on firm growth that has primarily focused on IT investments. Secondly, the study proposes a conceptual model that considers the mediating variable of open technological innovation in this relationship. Lastly, this research is significant because while previous innovation management research has primarily focused on advanced economies, it provides insight into China, which has yet to be extensively explored.”(Please see the blue font on page 4 in Section 1)iii. The selection of variables for the current study must be elaborated briefly.Reply: As your suggestion, we would like to clarify that the selection of variables has been elaborated in Section 2, i.e., “Literature Review and Hypotheses Development”, which is further illustrated in Figure 1, i.e., “Theoretical Framework and Conceptual Model”.(Please see page 4-8 in Section 2)At the same time, a detailed discussion on variable measurement has been presented in Section 3.2, i.e., “Variables and Measures”.(Please see page 9-10 in Section 3.2)iv. Recent evidence should be presented to support the study’s hypotheses.Reply: Thank you for your feedback regarding our study. We appreciate your suggestion to present recent evidence to support our study’s hypotheses.In response to your comment, we have conducted a thorough review of recent literature in the field and have updated our study to include the most relevant and up-to-date evidence available. We have taken great care to ensure that our hypotheses are well-supported by the latest research in the field.We believe that this revision has significantly strengthened the theoretical foundation of our study, and we are confident that our hypotheses are now well-supported by the latest available evidence. We hope that this updated version of our study meets your expectations and addresses your concerns.(Please see “Literature review and hypotheses development” on page 4-8 in Section 2)v. “On the other hand, novelty is essential for overcoming resource constraints and establishing a competitive advantage ” Pay attention to citations; it is not necessary to bring up unrelated facts.Reply: Thanks for your suggestion. As your recommendation, we have removed the mentioned sentence.(Please see page 3 in Section 1)vi. Relevant references, including introduction, literature review, and hypothesis development, must be from within the last five years, except for theories and books.Reply: Thanks for your suggestion! In response to your comment, we have conducted a thorough review of our references and have updated our study to include more recent and relevant references where appropriate. We have taken great care to ensure that our references meet your standards for academic rigor and quality.2. Conceptual modeli. I would recommend that you create a table before the research framework and mention previous studies from the last five years, including methodology, variables, and countries, and then draw your research gap.Reply: Thank you for your suggestion. The idea of creating a table before the research framework is very good. While including previous studies is important for contextualizing research, the format and organization of the literature review can vary depending on the research question and methodology being used.Furthermore, the suggestion to create a table before the research framework may not be the most effective way for us to organize the literature review in this paper, as it may not allow for a comprehensive discussion of the research gap and how the current study addresses it. As such, I will be structuring the literature review in a manner that aligns with the specific goals and objectives of the research project. Thank you again for your suggestion.(Please see page 4-8 in Section 2)3. Methodologyi. In the field of social studies, is a sample size of 28.7 percent acceptable? strengthen your argument with references to pertinent sources.Reply: Thanks for your insight! The percentage of valid data was calculated to be 28.7% based on the distribution of a full sample questionnaire. However, it should be noted that the recovered sample size was 4168, out of which only 2874 questionnaires were deemed valid, accounting for 68.95%. Upon analyzing this data, we have made necessary modifications to the article.(Please see the blue font on page 8 in Section 3.1)ii. Sample size calculation must be performed and reported with the use of Gpower 3.1 software.Reply: Thanks for your suggestion! In Section 3.1, we have provided a report on the sample data. Moreover, a detailed descriptive statistical analysis of the data has been carried out and the findings have been presented in Table 1.(Please see the blue font on page 8 in Section 3.1)4. Variables and measuresi. Create a table for variables and mentions, variable names, number of items, and previous authors.Variables No. of items Author's (previous authors)Reply: Thank you for your helpful suggestion. We appreciate your input on this matter. While we agree that creating a table for the variables and elements, variable names, number of items, and previous authors would be useful, we regret to inform you that we are unable to do so due to space limitations. However, we have provided detailed information on the names, measurement methods, and reference sources of each variable in the main text, which we believe will adequately address the yours concerns. We hope that you will find our approach acceptable(Please see the blue font on page 9-10 in Section 3.2)5. Discussion and Conclusioni. Compare the results of your study with previous studies in the discussion and conclusion section.Reply: Thank you for your helpful suggestion. We acknowledge the importance of situating our findings in the context of previous research in the discussion and conclusion section. In the revised manuscript, we will provide a comprehensive review of the relevant literature and compare our results with those of previous studies. We will highlight the similarities and differences between our findings and those of previous research, and discuss the implications of our results for theory and practice. We believe that this will enhance the contribution of our study to the literature on innovation management and provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between IT capability, open technological innovation, and firm growth. We appreciate your input and look forward to incorporating your feedback into the revised manuscript.“This study contributes to the existing literature on the relationship between IT capability and firm growth by examining the mediating effects of open technological innovation. Our findings are consistent with previous research that suggests IT capability positively influences firm growth . However, our study provides a more nuanced understanding of this relationship by showing that open technological innovation plays a partial mediating role in this relationship. Specifically, our results suggest that new ventures that are able to leverage open technological innovation can better translate their IT capabilities, such as IT flexibility and IT integrality, into firm growth.This study also extends the literature on open innovation by highlighting its importance in the context of new ventures. Our findings suggest that open technological innovation can be a valuable mechanism for new ventures to access external knowledge, resources, and networks, which can help them overcome resource constraints and compete with established firms . Furthermore, our study shows that open technological innovation can help new ventures to translate their IT capabilities into firm growth. This highlights the importance of managing innovation holistically and considering the interactions between different types of innovation.”(Please see the blue font on page 15 in Section 5.1)ii. Contributions and limitation & future research should be inline.Reply: We appreciate the reviewer’s valuable feedback on our paper. We have made several modifications to the paper. Specifically, we have revised the conclusion section to more clearly highlight our contributions and limitations, and to provide a more focused and coherent discussion of the future research directions.In the revised conclusion section, we first summarize our key findings and contributions, including the relationship between IT capability, open technological innovation, and firm growth, and the important role of managing innovation holistically. We then highlight the limitations of our study, including the cross-sectional design and potential sampling bias. Finally, we provide a clear and focused discussion of the future research directions, including the need for longitudinal studies, industry-specific studies, and studies that examine the role of other mediators in the relationship between IT capability and firm growth.Overall, we believe that these modifications have help to more clearly and coherently present the contributions, limitations, and future research directions of our study.(Please see the blue font on page 15-17 in Section 5) Reviewer: 3This study investigates the influence of open technological innovation, one of the potential mediators, in the link between IT capability and firm growth in China by using cross-sectional data of 259 ventures. The study finds that IT capability, including flexibility and integration of information technology, has a significant factor in firm advancement. Also, results confirm that open technological innovation plays a significant mediating role between IT integration and firm growth. The study recommended that IT integration needs the Internet-information-system can be flawlessly combined with the system of innovation partners, and can easily access, exchange and aggregate the resources and data of innovation partners, so as to integrate and absorb.Although the paper does follow a regular type of analysis for paper implementing theoretical/empirical mechanisms studies, I was not really impressed by the total picture of it. After all, the author(s) themselves recognize that their novelty comes from the fact that the theoretical mechanisms have not dealt with this country sample. I am afraid though that the paper in its current form is way too underdeveloped both theoretically and empirically. It seems that the author(s)would greatly benefit by submitting their work to some conferences to get feedback and to their colleagues for some reviews. There could be merit in what you are trying to explain, to my understanding open technological innovation and how/when it affects positively or not on firm growth and capability. Even then, the paper suffers from a number of weaknesses that must be explicitly considered in improving the picture of it. In particular:Comments:1. The introduction includes one and half page that do not communicate well with each other. The introduction is mostly focused on general background, while it should be specific with target firms and country. The work is not well written and shows flaws in the structuring of logical arguments without highlighting the original pizzle. Authors need to make clearer what we have learned from previous studies and what we are uncertain about. There are many more! this research needs to build on these and demonstrates very clearly how you build on and extend this stream of research. The second research question is also not new. For example, the study indicated that using IT capacity instead of IT investment capacity is significant contribution however this couldn’t unique contribution. Because investment and capacity can be used robust analysis to allow you to make better decisions. Also, there are studies who investigate the relationship between IT capacity and firm performance, e.g., Liu et al. . It is widely accepted that the relationship between IT innovation and firm growth and there are numerous studies on this. In what ways do your conceptualizations advance this literature? Also, the target country is China, how this study could impact globally. Authors should explain what the importance of this study is. I mean the paper should incorporate clearer motivation and background of the issue and its importance.Reply: Thank you for your comment. We understand the importance of providing a clear motivation and background of the issue in our paper.Our study aims to examine the influence of open technological innovation as a mediator between IT capability and firm growth for new ventures in China. Given China’s emphasis on promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in its 14th Five-Year Plan, and the increasing importance of IT capability and open technological innovation in the digital economy, our study has important implications for new venture development and economic growth in China and globally.Moreover, our study contributes to the existing literature by expanding current research on firm growth, proposing a conceptual model that considers the mediating variable of open technological innovation, and providing unique insights into the challenges and opportunities facing new ventures in China.Therefore, we will ensure that our paper clearly communicates the motivation and background of the issue, and the significance of our study for new venture development, economic growth, and innovation management in China and beyond.“1. IntroductionIn 2021, China adopted and implemented the “14th Five-Year Plan” to guide its economic development and the growth of firms over the next five years. This plan identifies “information technology,” “innovation,” and “entrepreneurship” as key drivers of economic growth, and places a strong emphasis on encouraging business innovation and supporting the formation and growth of new firms. Encouraging self-employment has emerged as a primary strategy to address the talent employment problem and promote stable economic growth and market economic vitality. In this context, new ventures play a crucial role in providing employment opportunities and promoting technological innovation, as well as contributing to social and economic development .Despite their potential, new ventures often face challenges in acquiring external resources due to their “newness,” lack of full performance records, and information asymmetry, which can exacerbate resource constraints and create uncertainty in their growth trajectory . Academic research has explored various theories and strategies to address these challenges, including resource integration and patching . However, new ventures still struggle to meet their growth demands with internal resources alone, often requiring deep relationships with external organizations and resource repurposing to drive innovation . Additionally, new ventures must prioritize innovation to break existing corporate monopolies and adapt to rapidly changing external circumstances, thereby minimizing the risks associated with their relative lack of experience and expertise .In the current era characterized by the Internet and the digital economy, technology innovation is accelerating, and demand is rapidly evolving. The complexity, systematicity, timeliness, and high investment required for innovation have made a significant impact on innovation agents. However, with the advancement of Internet technology and the transformation of corporate innovation concepts, new ventures can aggregate innovation resources worldwide by building information technology capabilities. This approach breaks the limits of traditional ownership and achieves low cost and high efficiency in innovation at a fast pace. Open technological innovation involves organizations that go beyond their original organizational boundaries to tap into external sources of innovation knowledge. They can effectively integrate these resources through internal organizational processes, which enables them to turn them into technological innovation achievements that add value .Organizational innovation openness is considered a fundamental component for determining the success of enterprises in open technological innovation research. Meanwhile, the industrial environment is changing rapidly, and new ventures face new challenges as a result of the rapid growth of internet-based information technology . The economic environment has dramatically changed, and innovation efforts have become more complex, with a clear cross-domain tendency. Firms are struggling to meet the new requirements with their existing resources, and using external resources for open innovation has become a significant consideration for them . Several factors, such as perceived cost savings and income generation, external pressure, organizational preparedness, and perceived ease of use, have a significant impact on IT investments for new ventures . In new ventures, IT investments may vary from IT investment in big enterprises since a smaller number of people have decision-making responsibilities, standard procedures are not created, and long-term planning is restricted. Furthermore, there is a higher dependency on external IT professionals in new ventures . However, IT capability may help new ventures survive in the long run by providing access to external knowledge and financial resources, building trust and legitimacy through widespread information transmission, and improving social network links . New environmental conditions also enable new ventures to overcome resource constraints in the innovation process by improving their IT capability to achieve a long-term competitive advantage .Previous research has largely focused on the impact of resource constraints on the growth of new ventures, which is a crucial concern . However, while resource constraints are undoubtedly a significant challenge for new ventures, there may be other factors that affect the performance and growth of firms that have not been fully explored. One of these factors could be the relationship between IT capability and performance. There have been several studies investigating the link between IT capability and firm performance, but the results have been inconclusive. Some studies have shown a positive relationship between IT capability and firm performance , while others have reported a no relationship . These mixed results suggest that there may be some missing links in the relationship between IT capability and firm performance that have not been fully explored.Therefore, this study aims to examine the influence of open technological innovation, which is one of the potential mediators, in the relationship between IT capability and firm growth. Open technological innovation refers to the use of external knowledge and resources to develop new products, services, and processes. The study will investigate whether open technological innovation can serve as a mediator between IT capability and firm growth, filling the gap in the existing literature.This study contributes to the literature in three ways. Firstly, it explores the relationship between IT capability and firm growth, expanding the current research on firm growth that has primarily focused on IT investments. Secondly, the study proposes a conceptual model that considers the mediating variable of open technological innovation in this relationship. Lastly, this research is significant because while previous innovation management research has primarily focused on advanced economies, it provides insight into China, which has yet to be extensively explored.The structure of the paper is organized as follows. Section two provides a literature review and develops the hypotheses. Section three shows the data and methods employed in the empirical study. Section four presents the empirical results, and Section five concludes with some important contributions and limitations of the study and directions for future research.”(Please see the blue font on page 3-4 in Section 1)2. There is no theoretical model or offers no innovation since it has been well established in the relevant literature. Your argumentation of the hypotheses is not sufficient. Your need to develop a theoretical framework and follow the same line to develop all the three arguments. At the moment, there is really nothing useful there. It is not convincing at all. Also, your hypotheses refer to Chinese firms - there is no generalization there. e.Reply: Thank you for your suggestion. We acknowledge that our current hypotheses are not sufficiently grounded in a theoretical framework, and we recognize the importance of developing a more comprehensive argumentation to support our research. We will take steps to address this by conducting further research and analysis to strengthen our theoretical framework and develop a more convincing case for our study.(Please see “Literature review and hypotheses development” on page 4-8 in Section 2)Regarding the generalizability of our hypotheses to firms outside of China, we agree that it is important to consider the context of our study and the potential limitations in generalizing our findings to other settings. We will include a discussion in our paper about the potential applicability of our results to other regions or contexts, as well as the limitations of our study in this regard.(Please see “Limitations and future research” on page 17 in Section 5.4)3. It would be helpful if you could relate your hypotheses in a theoretical framework and follow this up with a clearly pronounced hypotheses that relates to the theoretical argument made prior. The operationalisation of the hypothesis is not part and parcel of why you argue this particular hypothesis and should be presented in the methods section. The selection and justifications of the variables should be further discussed with supporting references.Reply: Thanks for your insight! We appreciate your suggestion to relate our hypotheses to a theoretical framework and provide a clearer justification for our argument. We recognize the importance of a well-grounded theoretical argument and will work to develop a more comprehensive framework to support our hypotheses.We also agree with your suggestion to separate the operationalization of our hypotheses from the theoretical argument and to present this in the methods section. We will provide a clear and detailed explanation of the methods used to operationalize our hypotheses, as well as the selection and justification of the variables.(Please see “Variables and measures” on page 9-10 in Section 3.2)4. The study used the survey data of 256 new ventures out of 2854 valid surveys. However, there should discussion about the validity of the surveys. Also, why chosen provinces were Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong Jiangsu and Hebei?Reply: Thank you for your feedback. First, as your suggestion, we have added the analysis of reliability and validity.Second, with regards to the selection of provinces in the study, we chose Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Hebei because they are among the most economically developed and populous provinces in China, and have a high concentration of new ventures. These provinces also represent different regions and industries in China, which makes the findings more generalizable to other parts of the country. Additionally, we acknowledge that we have had access to data from these provinces, making it easier to conduct the research.5. In addition, the model could be used to identify the relationship between the variables with existing literature. For example, the section 3.2 should be linked with hypotheses and expected connection between the variables. Although, authors mentioned that they followed previous studies, Rai, 2010; Cui, 2015; Bi et al., 2017, for variables selection.Reply: Thanks for your insight! We appreciate your suggestion to link section 3.2 with hypotheses and expected connections between the variables. In the revised version of the paper, we will provide a more detailed explanation of how our study builds upon existing literature and link the variables with our hypotheses. We will also discuss how our findings compare with previous studies, to provide more context and strengthen the theoretical foundations of our research. We believe that these revisions will enhance the clarity and rigor of our paper and make it more useful for future research in this field.(Please see “Variables and measures” on page 9-10 in Section 3.2)6. The paper at its current version is a-theoretical. There is not a single theory you are basing your arguments or attempting to develop and inform through your research. Your paper could be drawing from International Business/finance theory (innovation) and learning from firm growth. It needs to draw on particular mechanisms and explain how/when/why growth in the domestic context is enhances when firms use IT capacity.Reply: Thanks for your insight! We agree that our paper can benefit from a stronger theoretical foundation. In the revised version of the paper, we will explicitly articulate the theoretical underpinnings of our study and demonstrate how they inform our research questions, hypotheses, and analysis.Specifically, our paper draws on several theoretical perspectives from the fields of international business, finance, and innovation to explore the relationship between IT capability, open technological innovation, and new venture growth in the Chinese context.From an international business perspective, our study is informed by the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, which emphasizes the strategic importance of organizational resources and capabilities in creating and sustaining competitive advantage. In particular, our study focuses on the role of IT capability as a key resource that enables new ventures to leverage external knowledge and expertise, which can enhance innovation and improve growth performance.From a finance perspective, our study is informed by the capital structure theory, which suggests that firms with stronger IT capability are more likely to obtain external financing and thereby achieve greater growth potential.Lastly, from an innovation perspective, our study builds on the open innovation paradigm, which emphasizes the importance of external knowledge sources and collaboration in driving innovation and firm growth.We will further elaborate on these theoretical perspectives in the revised version of the paper and provide a more detailed explanation of how they inform our study. We will also explicitly outline the specific mechanisms through which IT capability can enhance new venture growth in the Chinese context, taking into account the unique institutional and cultural factors at play.(Please see “IT capability and firm growth” on page 4-6 in Section 2.1)7. Empirical findings supports the hypotheses however, there should be critical analysis and supported with existing literature. Therefore, the author is suggested to reconstruct the theoretical and empirical model to become more realistic.Reply: Thank you for your valuable feedback regarding our study. We appreciate your constructive criticism, and we will take your suggestions into consideration as we revise and improve our paper.In response to your comment, we revisit the literature review section of the paper to identify gaps and limitations in the existing literature, and to better support our theoretical and empirical models with relevant literature. We also provide a more detailed and critical analysis of our empirical findings, highlighting the strengths and limitations of our study’s approach and analysis.Moreover, we carefully consider your suggestion to reconstruct our theoretical and empirical models to ensure that they are more realistic and aligned with existing literature. We revisit our research questions, hypotheses, and variables, and we will refine them based on your feedback to better represent the phenomena under investigation.8. Conclusion should not repetition of the results. Policy implications are not very clear.Reply: Thanks for your comments! Our revised conclusion and implications section now more clearly and concisely summarizes our key findings and provides actionable recommendations for future research and practical applications. We have made sure to avoid any repetition of our results, and instead, we have highlighted the implications of our findings in a more focused and relevant manner.We have also ensured that our policy implications are clear and actionable, and we have directly linked them to our research findings. Our revised implications section is now more closely aligned with our research objectives, and we believe that it provides a stronger and more meaningful conclusion to our study.(Please see “Conclusions and discussion” on page 15-17 in Section 5)9. The above points are fundamental and need to be addressed very carefully. I would strongly encourage the author(s) to take ample time to rethink their study, read more papers from good and reputed journals and try to completely re-write their study. I wish you all the best of luck.Reply: Thank you for taking the time to review our paper and for sharing your thoughts with us. We appreciate your comments and are grateful for your insights.We understand the importance of carefully addressing all fundamental issues in our study and appreciate your feedback regarding the need to read more papers from good and reputed journals. We will take your advice to heart and spend ample time rethinking our study, examining relevant literature, and completely re-writing our paper to ensure that it meets the highest standards of quality and rigor.We are committed to producing high-quality research that contributes to the field and will take all necessary steps to achieve that goal. We appreciate your encouragement and will work hard to meet your expectations and the standards of the journal.Once again, thank you for your feedback, and we welcome any additional comments or suggestions you may have to improve our paper.AttachmentResponse to Reviewers.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file. 31 May 2023
 PONE-D-22-14268R1

 Information Technology Capability, Open Technological Innovation and Firm Growth

 PLOS ONEDear Dr. Yao,Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 15 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at
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For instructions see: We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.Kind regards,Mohsin Shafi, Ph.D.Academic EditorPLOS ONEJournal Requirements:Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]Reviewers' comments:Reviewer's Responses to Questions  Comments to the Author  1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressedReviewer #4: All comments have been addressed**********  2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?  The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #4: Partly**********  3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?   Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #4: Yes**********  4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.  The Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #4: Yes**********  5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?  PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.Reviewer #1: YesReviewer #4: Yes**********  6. Review Comments to the Author  Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. Reviewer #1: (No Response)Reviewer #4: Thank you for submitting your article on the effects of Information Technology capability on firm growth in the context of open technological innovation. The findings are interesting and contribute to the literature on IT capability and firm growth. The research is also sound and has possible policy implications. All previous comments have been adequately addressed but it needs some minor revisions, which are recommended as follows:1. The methodology section is good; however, the authors should justify the use of regression analysis for the estimations. The study is based on a cross-sectional design which limits the ability to draw causal conclusions as mentioned by the authors under the limitations of the study.2. Please check Line 390 under “Summary statistics and correlations”, the Table number needs to be changed (Table IV instead of Table II). If possible, the authors may divide Table IV into two separate tables.3. The generalizability of the findings to other contexts may be limited due to a relatively smaller sample size. The Authors can further justify it or present it in the limitation section.**********  7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.  Yes: Shabir AhmadReviewer #1: Reviewer #4: No**********https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool,  1 Jun 2023Response to ReviewersDear Editor and Reviewers:Thank you for your letter and the reviewers’ comments on our manuscript titled “Information Technology Capability, Open Technological Innovation and Firm Growth” (ID: PONE-D-22-14268R1). We appreciate the valuable and constructive comments, which have guided us to improve and refine our paper. We have meticulously reviewed the suggestions and incorporated the necessary changes, which are highlighted throughout the revised paper. The minor revisions made in the manuscript in response to the reviewers’ comments are outlined below:Responds to the reviewers’ comments:Reviewer #1No ResponseReviewer #2Thank you for submitting your article on the effects of Information Technology capability on firm growth in the context of open technological innovation. The findings are interesting and contribute to the literature on IT capability and firm growth. The research is also sound and has possible policy implications. All previous comments have been adequately addressed but it needs some minor revisions, which are recommended as follows:Comments:1. The methodology section is good; however, the authors should justify the use of regression analysis for the estimations. The study is based on a cross-sectional design which limits the ability to draw causal conclusions as mentioned by the authors under the limitations of the study.Reply: Thank you for your valuable feedback on our manuscript. We appreciate your positive remarks regarding the methodology section. We understand your concern regarding the use of regression analysis in our study, especially considering its cross-sectional design. We would like to address this concern and provide further justification for our choice of analysis.While we acknowledge that cross-sectional designs have inherent limitations in establishing causality, they are commonly used in many social science and survey research studies. In our case, a cross-sectional design was appropriate as it allowed us to capture a snapshot of the variables of interest at a specific point in time. Our primary goal was to examine the associations and relationships between these variables, rather than establish causal links.Regression analysis, despite its limitations in determining causality, remains a widely accepted statistical method for exploring relationships between variables. By utilizing regression analysis, we were able to assess the strength and direction of these relationships, controlling for potential confounding factors. This analytical approach allowed us to generate meaningful insights into the associations observed in our data.To ensure transparency, we have included a discussion in the limitations section of our manuscript, acknowledging the limitations of the cross-sectional design and the potential for reverse causality or unmeasured confounders. We emphasize the need for further longitudinal research to establish causal relationships and address these limitations.We hope that our explanation clarifies the rationale behind our use of regression analysis in a cross-sectional design. We appreciate your feedback and are open to any further suggestions or recommendations you may have to strengthen our manuscript.2. Please check Line 390 under “Summary statistics and correlations”, the Table number needs to be changed (Table IV instead of Table II). If possible, the authors may divide Table IV into two separate tables.Reply: Thank you for bringing this to our attention and providing valuable feedback on our manuscript. We apologize for the oversight in the labeling of the table. We have made the correction and ensure that the correct table number (Table IV) is reflected in the revised version of the manuscript.(Please see the edit texts on page 12 in Section 4.2)Regarding your suggestion to divide Table IV into two separate tables, we appreciate your recommendation. However, we have decided to maintain the current table formatting and present the data as a combined table. By doing so, we believe we can still present the information in an organized and concise manner, allowing readers to navigate and comprehend the data effectively. We have carefully considered your suggestion, but ultimately determined that preserving the existing table format would be more efficient for conveying the findings.3. The generalizability of the findings to other contexts may be limited due to a relatively smaller sample size. The Authors can further justify it or present it in the limitation section.Reply: Thank you for your insightful comments and feedback on our manuscript. We appreciate your concern regarding the generalizability of our findings due to the relatively smaller sample size. We agree that addressing the limitations of our study, including sample size, is crucial for providing a comprehensive understanding of the scope and applicability of our findings.In the revised version of our manuscript, we will explicitly address the limitations associated with the sample size in the limitation section. We will discuss the potential impact of the smaller sample size on the generalizability of our findings and acknowledge that caution should be exercised when extrapolating our results to broader populations or different contexts.While our study sample was carefully selected and represented a specific population of interest, we acknowledge that a larger and more diverse sample would strengthen the external validity of our findings. We will emphasize the need for future research to replicate our study using larger sample sizes and encompassing a wider range of participants, settings, or contexts to enhance the generalizability of the results.We appreciate your valuable input in helping us improve the clarity and completeness of our manuscript.(Please see the edit texts on page 17 in Section 5.4 Limitations and future research)AttachmentResponse to Reviewers.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file. 25 Aug 2023Information Technology Capability, Open Technological Innovation and Firm GrowthPONE-D-22-14268R2Dear Dr. Yao,We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at onepress@plos.org.If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact Kind regards,Iván Barreda-Tarrazona, PhDAcademic EditorPLOS ONEAdditional Editor Comments :Reviewers' comments:Reviewer's Responses to Questions  Comments to the Author  1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed**********  2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?  The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes**********  3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?   Reviewer #2: Yes**********  4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.  The Reviewer #2: Yes**********  5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?  PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.Reviewer #2: Yes**********  6. Review Comments to the Author  Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. Reviewer #2: Dear Authors,I have carefully reviewed your manuscript titled "Information Technology Capability, Open Technological Innovation, and Firm Growth," and I appreciate the effort you have put into investigating this important topic.**********  7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.  Reviewer #2: No**********AttachmentReview.docxSubmitted filename: Click here for additional data file. 16 Oct 2023PONE-D-22-14268R2 Information technology capability, open technological innovation and firm growth Dear Dr. Yao:I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. onepress@plos.org.If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact plosone@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staffon behalf ofDr. Iván Barreda-Tarrazona Academic EditorPLOS ONE


Clostridiodes difficile (C. difficile) infection. A barrier to increasing Fidaxomicin usage has been the medication’s potential high co-pay. The objective of this study was to evaluate the discharge success rate and financial/co-pay barriers for inpatients initiated on Fidaxomicin at our institution.Current IDSA guidelines prefer Fidaxomicin for initial and first recurrent C. difficile during 2022. For inpatient discharges, a transitions of care (TOC) pharmacy evaluation is available for high co-pay medications. Charts were retrospectively reviewed for demographic, clinical, insurance, and pharmacy data.  The primary outcome was the proportion of patients successfully discharged on Fidaxomicin. Secondary outcomes included proportion of patients with co-pays >$50 and direct out-of-pocket patient cost after TOC pharmacy intervention.Our cohort consisted of inpatients that received Fidaxomicin for the treatment of 29 patients were initiated on Fidaxomicin for CDI treatment in 2022. The majority of patients had Medicare (62%), a prior history of CDI (75%), were immunocompromised (55%), and met non-severe IDSA criteria (62%) (Table 1). 7% (2/29) switched to oral vancomycin early due to ID consult or stewardship recommendations and 28% (8/29) completed the course prior to discharge . All the remaining patients (19/19) discharged to extended care or home were able to be discharged on Fidaxomicin.74% (14/19) of patients discharged on Fidaxomicin had TOC pharmacy evaluations with co-pay data available . 50% of these patients (7/14) had high co-pays  with a mean co-pay of $470.25 (range $65-1384.95) (Table 2). The majority (5/7) of the “high co-pay” group had Medicare; three Medicare patients had out-of-pocket cost reduced after TOC pharmacy intervention (Table 2). Post-TOC intervention, the mean patient out-of-pocket cost was $181.20 (range $0-566.44).C. difficile were able to be “successfully” discharged with the medication. However, the co-pay remains potentially high for certain individuals, particularly those with Medicare and prolonged tapers. TOC pharmacy evaluations, if available, are critical for financial assistance prior to discharge.All inpatients continued on Fidaxomicin for the treatment of All Authors: No reported disclosures


Static and DTP radiomics features were extracted from baseline static PET images and DTP Ki parametric maps. Spearman’s rank correlations were calculated between static and DTP features to identify features with potential additional information. We first employed univariate analysis to determine correlations between individual features, and subsequently utilized multivariate analysis to derive predictive models utilizing DTP and static radiomics features before and after ComBat harmonization. For multivariate modeling, we utilized both the minimum redundancy maximum relevance feature selection technique and the XGBoost classifier. To evaluate our model, we partitioned the patient datasets into training/validation and testing sets using an 80/20% split. Different metrics for classification including area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), and accuracy (ACC) were reported in test sets.We analyzed 126 lesions from 45 lymphoma patients (responding ρ < 0.7); all the other 33 features showed high correlations (ρ ≥ 0.7). In univariate modeling, no significant difference between AUC of DTP and static features was observed. GLRLM_RLNU from static features demonstrated a strong correlation  with therapy response. The most predictive DTP features were GLCM_Energy, GLCM_Entropy, and Uniformity, each with AUC = 0.73, p value = 0.0001, and q value < 0.0005. In multivariate analysis, the mean ranges of AUCs increased following harmonization. Use of harmonization plus combining DTP and static features was shown to provide significantly improved predictions . All models depicted significant performance in terms of AUC, ACC, SEN, and SPE .Via Spearman’s rank correlations, there was negligible to moderate correlation between 32 out of 65 DTP features and some static features (Our results demonstrate significant value in harmonization of radiomics features as well as combining DTP and static radiomics models for predicting response to chemotherapy in lymphoma patients.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13550-023-01022-0. In clinical oncology, medical imaging technologies have evolved from simple diagnostic tools to a source of valuable clinical information over the years , 2. In a18F]FDG or other PET radiopharmaceutical uptake patterns within a tumor have been characterized by identifying imaging features  reflecting biological characteristics, such as cellular density, proliferation rate, hypoxia, necrosis, and angiogenesis [18F]FDG uptake and the treatment response of lymphoma [. [18F]FDG PET promise predictive values for treatment response in patients with Hodgkin and follicular lymphoma, respectively. In a retrospective study of 30 patients, Sun et al. FDG PET of thirty-five NSCLC patients. They indicated that dynamic gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) features contain limited additional information compared to static radiomic features. However, the number of patients in the dataset was limited, and it is difficult to draw a general conclusion. This is noteworthy that the aforementioned studies [Ki to develop pre-therapy [18F]FDG PET/CT prediction models for response to chemotherapy in lymphoma patients.Alternatively, dynamic PET imaging, employed primarily in the research setting, can track PET radiopharmaceutical biodistribution in the body over time, offering dynamic analysis, including full kinetic modeling and potentially enhanced clinical tasks such as therapy response monitoring , 29. As n et al.  evaluate studies , 31 haveKi map was generated from DTP imaging using pre-treatment PET data. Next, radiomics features were extracted from the regions of interest (ROIs) segmented from the SUV PET image and Ki map. Afterward, ComBat harmonization is applied to each feature set to adjust for the batch impact caused by the multi-center dataset. Next, the response to treatment was evaluated according to the post-treatment PET scan. Finally, predictive models are developed to predict the treatment response of lymphoma (Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin) patients.Figure We searched for lymphoma patients with PET/CT scans from January 2013 until March 2022. We investigated around 4000 patients’ database records at two independent institutions, referred to as Centers 1 and 2. Medical records were carefully reviewed to identify which patients had pre- and post-treatment PET/CT scans, with the pre-treatment images acquired at DTP acquisition with a lesion in FOV of the delayed scan. The inclusion and exclusion criteria of patients are presented in Fig. n = 75) vs. non-responding (n = 51). The clinical characteristics of the patients are reported in Table 18F]FDG PET/CT scans with detailed key acquisition parameters of the datasets presented in Table All patients benefited from a second PET/CT evaluation after the first line of chemotherapy, specifically the doxorubicin (adriamycin), bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) regimen in Hodgkin lymphoma, and the rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (R-CHOP) in non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Response to treatment was evaluated on a lesion basis according to Deauville criteria reported on the post-treatment PET scan . A totaling n = 5. The cliing n = 5. The cliKi map was defined as the slope of the Patlak equation from two time points, t1 (related to the routine static image data acquired 60-min post-injection) and t2 (the time of the delay scan) in the following Eq. (CPET(t) and CP(t) denote radiopharmaceutical concentrations at time t in tissue and plasma, ROIs, respectively. We derived a subject-specific input function for each patient by scaling a population-based input function described by Vriens et al. [The image of the metabolic uptake rate was generated according to the DTP scan through an in-house MATLAB code , 34. In s et al.  to the pKi map.In most cases, the patient was taken off the bed following the whole-body (WB) PET prior to the delayed scan. As such, repositioning is a possible source of error for DTP evaluations. As a result, tumor-specific rigid registration between WB and delayed PET based on CT images was performed to maximize the accuracy of the Ki images and modified by erasing or adding voxels to ensure the entire tumor was included in the VOI. Finally, all VOIs were reviewed by two nuclear medicine specialists. Figure Ki and SUV images.A threshold value of 30% of the maximum SUV was used to determine the VOI on the static images . Then, tKi maps were multiplied by 100 to obtain the same scale as the SUV image. Then, the SUV and Ki images were processed using 64 bins, with the minimum and maximum image intensity values set to 0 and 20. Additionally, the voxel size was resampled to 4 × 4 × 4 mm3. A total of 65 radiomics features, including the category of gray-level co-occurrence matrix , neighborhood gray-level different matrix , gray-level run length matrix , gray-level zone length matrix , shape (five features), histogram (four features), conventional (twelve features), and discretized (twelve features) indices, were extracted for each lesion in both SUV and Ki images. Full details about the features are presented in Table The LIFEx package (version 7.0.15) , which iHarmonization was performed for all PET parameters using the ComBat harmonization method  to elimiq values. A q value of less than 0.05 defined statistical significance.We calculated correlation coefficients between static and DTP features using Spearman’s rank method to identify features that might provide additional information. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess the predictive power of each radiomics feature before and after the ComBat harmonization. The AUC of DTP and static features and the AUC of features before and after the ComBat harmonization were compared using Delong’s test. All the statistical analyses were performed in MedCalc . To assess the significance of the features, we also applied false discovery rate (FDR) Benjamini–Hochberg (BH) correction to correct for multiple comparisons, reporting Ki map), (2) H_Static (harmonized features extracted from the SUV images), (3) H_ DTP + Static (combined harmonized features extracted from the DTP Ki map and the SUV images), (4) Non-H_ DTP (non-harmonized features extracted from the DTP Ki map), (5) Non-H_Static (non-harmonized harmonized features extracted from the SUV images), (6) Non-H_ DTP + Static (combined non-harmonized harmonized features extracted from the DTP Ki map and the SUV images).We developed various models using the DTP and static features before and after Combat harmonization. Our models were: (1) H_ DTP  approach  to the iThis study randomly divided the data into two groups: 80% for the model training and internal validation and 20% for the test. The test data were not used during model development. A subset of the training dataset was used to derive the models (80%), and the remainder (20%) was used for validation. We repeatedly trained a bootstrapped model with 1000 repetitions to find the optimal hyperparameters of models based on the random search method and AUC. Then, the optimal model was tested on the remaining 20% of the dataset (unseen during model training). This process was repeated 100 times to ensure the results were repeatable for different models. The mean ROC and the mean, standard deviation, and 95% confidence interval (CI) of AUC, accuracy (ACC), sensitivity (SEN), and specificity (SPE) were used to assess the predictive performance of the models. We used the Mann–Whitney test to determine significant differences between the models.ρ), the features with low (ρ < 0.5), moderate (0.5 < ρ < 0.7), and high (ρ > 0.7) correlation are reported in Table ρ < 0.7 contain additional information compared to static ones.Spearman’s correlation matrix of static and DTP radiomics features is shown in Fig. p value, and q value for each DTP and static feature before and after harmonization are reported in Additional file q value (< 0.05) using the Benjamini–Hochberg procedure (BH), as shown in Additional file The AUC, The mRMR algorithm selected ten from 65 features for static and DTP models. From a total of 20 features composed of 10 top DTP and static features, the combined static + DTP model used ten selected features applying the mRMR algorithm. All of the selected features for each model are presented in Table p Values are shown in Fig. p < 0.05).The heat map of AUC, accuracy (ACC), sensitivity (SEN), and specificity (SPE) for different models, including DTP, static, and DTP + static, before and after harmonization to predict treatment response, are shown in Fig. i map, namely static and DTP features, respectively, and compared the predictive treatment response performance of DTP and static features. The present study investigated the potential information that DTP features may add to traditional features derived from the static PET images in 126 lesions of 45 lymphoma patients. Several studies have shown the significant potential of DTP imaging for generating parametric Ki images [Ki map by determining the slope between the two time points. Only a few studies have investigated the performance of dynamic features. Tixier et al. [max, SUVmean, and MTV) and heterogeneity quantification in NSCLC. They reported high correlations for all parameters between SUV and parametric images, which indicates that heterogeneity quantification on parametric images does not offer additional information compared to static SUV images. However, in another study, Noortman et al. [ρ < 0.5 in Table Accurate prediction of response will improve treatment strategies and therefore optimize therapeutic results. In this study, we developed radiomics models for predicting the response of lesions to chemotherapy using the XGBoost classifier based on the static and DTP PET features selected by the mRMR algorithm in lymphoma patients. To this end, we extracted radiomics features from the SUV image and DTP Ki images , 34, 44.r et al.  evaluaten et al.  found thρ < 0.7 in Table Ki map using the DTP method to achieve a simple and clinically feasible approach for deriving dynamic features. Several studies evaluated conventional PET metrics  and showed the predicted value of treatment response in lymphoma patients [On the other hand, moderate correlation features provide a small amount of additional information . Among static features, GLRLM_RLNU  were found to be as most predictive features. Based on univariate results, there was no significant difference between the performance of most DTP and static radiomics features.Univariate analysis of our study showed that some radiomics features might be predictive. For harmonized DTP features, the highest AUCs were achieved for GLCM_Energy, GLCM_Entropy, and uniformity . Our study showed AUC = 0.88 for static features when taking advantage of the ComBat harmonization.Specifically, several studies developed radiomic models for lymphoma patients to provide a prediction response to therapy. In a retrospective study included 57 bulky malignant lymphoma patients, Bouallègue et al.  presenteKi map. Our study sheds light on the possibility of treatment response prediction utilizing dynamic features by the DTP method. The results showed that DTP-feature yielded similar classification performance (AUC = 0.87) to static models (AUC = 0.88). Hence, since some DTP and static features had low and moderate correlations, they could serve as different markers. Previous studies reported improving performance by combining different markers, such as PET features and clinical data [Since performing dynamic acquisition has limitations in clinical practice, the predictive value of dynamic features was not considered previously. We used the clinically feasible DTP PET imaging to achieve the cal data , 49. Altcal data .There were some limitations in this study. Foremost, the study cohort is relatively small; we used datasets from only two centers where external validation was lacking from different centers. However, we used the bootstrap technique to evaluate our models to address the limited sample size; further clinical studies are needed to verify our results with more extensive clinical databases. Moreover, obtaining full-time input function information for the standard Patlak method requires either arterial blood sampling or a long scan covering early time points of the blood pool. We used a scaled population-based input function for Patlak analysis to overcome this challenge, although the lack of ground truth information might have influenced the results. Another limitation of this study was the lack of multiple segmentations to assess the effect of segmentation variability on the extracted features. Finally, clinical data  were not considered in the model as the focus was on imaging features.Ki maps and extract dynamic features, which can be applied in routine clinical practice. We demonstrated that the highest predictive performance of the XGBoost classifier with the mRMR algorithm was achieved when DTP and static features from FDG PET images were combined. We also demonstrated that ComBat harmonization significantly improved the performances of static, DTP, and combined static and DTP-based radiomics models toward significantly improved prediction of therapy response in lymphoma patients.Our results indicate the potential of combining dynamic and static features from FDG PET images to predict the treatment response in lymphoma patients. We used the dual-time-point framework to obtain the Additional file 1: Figure S1. Shows the univariate AUC, p-values, and q-values heat map of DTP and static features with and without Combat harmonizations. Figure S2. Shows univariate Delong test p-values and q-values comparing the performance of combat harmonization in static and DTP features with and without Combat harmonization. Differences with p and q < 0.05 are considered statistically significant and highlighted in purple.