[REVIEW]: PyroRL: A Reinforcement Learning Environment for Wildfire Evacuation

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @cpondoc (Christopher Pondoc)
Repository: https://github.com/sisl/PyroRL
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch): master
Version: v1.0.0
Editor: @mikemahoney218
Reviewers: @SamTov, @shahchiragh
Archive: 10.5281/zenodo.13731133

Status

Status badge code:

HTML: <a href="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/b9f135b1c36e531bed3d840077b059f2"><img src="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/b9f135b1c36e531bed3d840077b059f2/status.svg"></a>
Markdown: [![status](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/b9f135b1c36e531bed3d840077b059f2/status.svg)](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/b9f135b1c36e531bed3d840077b059f2)

Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@SamTov & @shahchiragh, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review.
First of all you need to run this command in a separate comment to create the checklist:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @mikemahoney218 know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @SamTov

📝 Checklist for @shahchiragh

[editorialbot]

Hello humans, I'm @editorialbot, a robot that can help you with some common editorial tasks.

For a list of things I can do to help you, just type:

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For example, to regenerate the paper pdf after making changes in the paper's md or bib files, type:

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[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.90  T=0.03 s (1086.8 files/s, 143954.2 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Python                          14            383            530           1873
Markdown                         9            200              0            501
XML                              1              0              0            317
TeX                              1             14              0            147
YAML                             5              7              4            111
JavaScript                       1              1              0             18
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                            31            605            534           2967
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

   125	cpondoc
    34	joey-obrien
    10	JosephGuman
     1	Chris Pondoc

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.5281/zenodo.8127026 is OK
- 10.2737/INT-GTR-194 is OK
- 10.1002/eap.1898 is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.2010.07915 is OK
- 10.3389/FICT.2018.00006 is OK
- 10.2514/1.G004106 is OK
- 10.3389/ffgc.2022.734330 is OK
- 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3055651 is OK
- 10.1111/risa.12944 is OK
- 10.2514/1.g004106 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: A mathematical model for predicting fire spread in...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gym Cellular Automata
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gym Forest Fire
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Algorithms for decision making
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Stable-Baselines3: Reliable Reinforcement Learning...

INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 1075

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

✅ License found: MIT License (Valid open source OSI approved license)

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[mikemahoney218]

👋🏼 @cpondoc, @SamTov, @shahchiragh this is the review thread for the paper. Just about all of our communications will happen here from now on 😄

As a reviewer, the first step is to create a checklist for your review by entering

@editorialbot generate my checklist

as the top of a new comment in this thread.

These checklists contain the JOSS requirements. As you go over the submission, please check any items that you feel have been satisfied. The first comment in this thread also contains links to the JOSS reviewer guidelines.

The JOSS review is different from most other journals. Our goal is to work with the authors to help them meet our criteria instead of merely passing judgment on the submission. As such, the reviewers are encouraged to submit issues and pull requests on the software repository. When doing so, please mention openjournals/joss-reviews#6739 so that a link is created to this thread (and I can keep an eye on what is happening). Please also feel free to comment and ask questions on this thread. In my experience, it is better to post comments/questions/suggestions as you come across them instead of waiting until you've reviewed the entire package.

We aim for reviews to be completed within about 4 weeks. Please let me know if you require some more time.

Please feel free to ping me (@mikemahoney218) if you have any questions/concerns!

[mikemahoney218]

Just as a quick note: I'm going to be traveling and generally less available until May 20th. I'll still be checking GitHub and email intermittently, but apologies if it takes me a bit longer to respond than usual!

[cpondoc]

This is great to hear! Thank you so much for all of your help @mikemahoney218! Our team will be here to answer any questions! :)

[SamTov]

Review checklist for @SamTov

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/sisl/PyroRL?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@cpondoc) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[SamTov]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[cpondoc]

Hey @SamTov! Thanks for the comments -- we'll be sure to fix up the related work and also investigate the behavior on map_gen_example.py by the end of this week. Let us know if you need anything else from our end!

[SamTov]

@cpondoc Thanks for taking care of it. Nothing more from my side. It's a great package!

[mikemahoney218]

Thank you so much for your review, @SamTov !

@shahchiragh , I wanted to give this a quick bump now that we're about three weeks into the review window, and ask how your review is progressing/if you're still expecting to complete your reviews on the original timeline.

Just as a reminder, the first step in the review is to post @editorialbot generate my checklist as the start of a new comment in this thread, which will generate a review checklist for you to use!

[shahchiragh]

Review checklist for @shahchiragh

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/sisl/PyroRL?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@cpondoc) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[shahchiragh]

@editorialbot commands

[editorialbot]

Hello @shahchiragh, here are the things you can ask me to do:

# List all available commands
@editorialbot commands

# Get a list of all editors's GitHub handles
@editorialbot list editors

# Adds a checklist for the reviewer using this command
@editorialbot generate my checklist

# Set a value for branch
@editorialbot set joss-paper as branch

# Run checks and provide information on the repository and the paper file
@editorialbot check repository

# Check the references of the paper for missing DOIs
@editorialbot check references

# Generates the pdf paper
@editorialbot generate pdf

# Generates a LaTeX preprint file
@editorialbot generate preprint

# Get a link to the complete list of reviewers
@editorialbot list reviewers

[shahchiragh]

@editorialbot check references

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.5281/zenodo.8127026 is OK
- 10.2737/INT-GTR-194 is OK
- 10.1002/eap.1898 is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.2010.07915 is OK
- 10.3389/FICT.2018.00006 is OK
- 10.2514/1.G004106 is OK
- 10.3389/ffgc.2022.734330 is OK
- 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3055651 is OK
- 10.1111/risa.12944 is OK
- 10.2514/1.g004106 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: A mathematical model for predicting fire spread in...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gym Cellular Automata
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gym Forest Fire
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Algorithms for decision making
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Stable-Baselines3: Reliable Reinforcement Learning...

INVALID DOIs

- None

[shahchiragh]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[editorialbot]

I'm sorry human, I don't understand that. You can see what commands I support by typing:

@editorialbot commands

[mikemahoney218]

@editorialbot set v1.0.0 as version

[editorialbot]

Done! version is now v1.0.0

[joey-obrien]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[joey-obrien]

Hey @mikemahoney218, I made the changes you referred to above in the references. I also updated the reference to the NATO article to be from the journal I found it in and not the conference. The URL for this NATO article also currently extends beyond the edge of the page, and I was wondering if there is something we should do to fix this. Thanks!

[mikemahoney218]

@editorialbot recommend-accept

🎉 With everything looking good on my end, it's time for me to hand this back to the EiC for last steps. Thanks @cpondoc for the submission, and thank you so much to @SamTov and @shahchiragh for reviewing!

@joey-obrien , with regards to the long URL, I'm going to need to ask the EiCs about that myself -- not sure if that will get fixed automatically or if we need a workaround.

[editorialbot]

Attempting dry run of processing paper acceptance...

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

✅ OK DOIs

- 10.5281/zenodo.8127026 is OK
- 10.1007/s10694-023-01363-1 is OK
- 10.1016/j.firesaf.2020.103129 is OK
- 10.1016/j.trc.2015.11.010 is OK
- 10.1016/j.simpat.2015.10.002 is OK
- 10.1061/JTEPBS.0000221 is OK
- 10.1007/s11116-011-9320-6 is OK
- 10.1111/risa.12944 is OK
- 10.2737/INT-GTR-194 is OK
- 10.1002/eap.1898 is OK
- 10.1063/5.0209018 is OK
- 10.3389/fict.2018.00006 is OK
- 10.48550/arXiv.2010.07915 is OK
- 10.3389/FICT.2018.00006 is OK
- 10.2514/1.G004106 is OK
- 10.3389/ffgc.2022.734330 is OK
- 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3055651 is OK
- 10.1111/risa.12944 is OK
- 10.2514/1.g004106 is OK

🟡 SKIP DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: Reinforcement Learning for Wildfire Mitigation in ...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: A mathematical model for predicting fire spread in...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Using Reinforcement Learning to Provide Decision S...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Being the Fire: A CNN-Based Reinforcement Learning...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gym Cellular Automata
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gym Forest Fire
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Algorithms for decision making
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Stable-Baselines3: Reliable Reinforcement Learning...

❌ MISSING DOIs

- None

❌ INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

👋 @openjournals/dsais-eics, this paper is ready to be accepted and published.

Check final proof 👉📄 Download article

If the paper PDF and the deposit XML files look good in openjournals/joss-papers#5880, then you can now move forward with accepting the submission by compiling again with the command @editorialbot accept

[crvernon]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[crvernon]

🔍 checking out the following:

• reviewer checklists are completed or addressed
• version set
• archive set
• archive names (including order) and title in archive matches those specified in the paper
• archive uses the same license as the repo and is OSI approved as open source
• archive DOI and version match or redirect to those set by editor in review thread
• paper is error free - grammar and typos
• paper is error free - test links in the paper and bib
• paper is error free - refs preserve capitalization where necessary
• paper is error free - no invalid refs without justification

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[crvernon]

@cpondoc - very nice job with this one. I only have one comment that needs to be addressed before I accept this for publication.

• LINE 189: "kincade fire" should have a capital "K" and "F" in this context. You can maintain formatting in your bib file using curly brackets around the characters that you wish to do so for.

Let me know when this has been addressed and I'll publish.

[mikemahoney218]

cc @joey-obrien who's been handling line edits over the summer -- one note from the EiC above!

[shahchiragh]

Great work guys! Congratulations on the release 🎉

[cpondoc]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[cpondoc]

Hey @crvernon -- should've just fixed the issue with capitalization!

[crvernon]

@editorialbot accept

[editorialbot]

Doing it live! Attempting automated processing of paper acceptance...

[editorialbot]

Ensure proper citation by uploading a plain text CITATION.cff file to the default branch of your repository.

If using GitHub, a Cite this repository menu will appear in the About section, containing both APA and BibTeX formats. When exported to Zotero using a browser plugin, Zotero will automatically create an entry using the information contained in the .cff file.

You can copy the contents for your CITATION.cff file here:

CITATION.cff

cff-version: "1.2.0"
authors:
- family-names: Guman
  given-names: Joseph
- family-names: O'Brien
  given-names: Joseph C.
- family-names: Pondoc
  given-names: Christopher
- family-names: Kochenderfer
  given-names: Mykel J.
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.13731133
message: If you use this software, please cite our article in the
  Journal of Open Source Software.
preferred-citation:
  authors:
  - family-names: Guman
    given-names: Joseph
  - family-names: O'Brien
    given-names: Joseph C.
  - family-names: Pondoc
    given-names: Christopher
  - family-names: Kochenderfer
    given-names: Mykel J.
  date-published: 2024-09-18
  doi: 10.21105/joss.06739
  issn: 2475-9066
  issue: 101
  journal: Journal of Open Source Software
  publisher:
    name: Open Journals
  start: 6739
  title: "PyroRL: A Reinforcement Learning Environment for Wildfire
    Evacuation"
  type: article
  url: "https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.06739"
  volume: 9
title: "PyroRL: A Reinforcement Learning Environment for Wildfire
  Evacuation"

If the repository is not hosted on GitHub, a .cff file can still be uploaded to set your preferred citation. Users will be able to manually copy and paste the citation.

Find more information on .cff files here and here.

[editorialbot]

🐘🐘🐘 👉 Toot for this paper 👈 🐘🐘🐘

[editorialbot]

🚨🚨🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL, YOU HAVE JUST ACCEPTED A PAPER INTO JOSS! 🚨🚨🚨

Here's what you must now do:

0. Check final PDF and Crossref metadata that was deposited 👉 Creating pull request for 10.21105.joss.06739 joss-papers#5894
1. Wait five minutes, then verify that the paper DOI resolves https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06739
2. If everything looks good, then close this review issue.
3. Party like you just published a paper! 🎉🌈🦄💃👻🤘

Any issues? Notify your editorial technical team...

[crvernon]

🥳 Congratulations on your new publication @cpondoc! Many thanks to @mikemahoney218 for editing and @SamTov and @shahchiragh for your time, hard work, and expertise!! JOSS wouldn't be able to function nor succeed without your efforts.

Please consider becoming a reviewer for JOSS if you are not already: https://reviewers.joss.theoj.org/join

[editorialbot]

🎉🎉🎉 Congratulations on your paper acceptance! 🎉🎉🎉

If you would like to include a link to your paper from your README use the following code snippets:

Markdown:
[![DOI](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.06739/status.svg)](https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06739)

HTML:
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  <img src="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.06739/status.svg" alt="DOI badge" >
</a>

reStructuredText:
.. image:: https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.06739/status.svg
   :target: https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06739

This is how it will look in your documentation:

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