Talking about my experience of the latest accepted paper of our team might be useful for somebody who study on interdisciplinary topics of biology and computer science. When I visited University of Surrey, YJ told me about his harsh experience on the same kind of interdisciplinary work of his grad student who studied bio informatics under his supervision. This grad student submitted a paper that discussed genome code analysis or something like that (I forgot the detail on the content) but a bunch of comments which pointed out critical issues hidden in his manuscript from the points of genetic bio-science researchers. He has finally given up the topic and the paper to be published from a renowned journal. We chatted it over our lunch in a faculty dining of the university that has a beautiful garden last August.

Our paper that is entitled as "Trail Traffic Flow Prediction by Contact Frequency among Individual Ants", is a study of the smooth traffic flow of the house-hunting ant, Temnothorax albipennis. We have modeled their traffic flow on a single-chain like trail. Our estimates of the traffic flow based on the model have matched the data obtained in field researches by three different research groups. We followed the previous work of the ant-trail traffic flow performed by a German study group. They studied the trail traffic flow of food finding ants. We studied the larger-scaled traffic flow of the movements of ant colonies. We borrowed some fundamental concepts that they introduced into the analysis of ant trails. Although they modeled the movements on a kinetic basis, we formed them on a probabilistic model. Mutual contacts between ants control their behaviors in colony moving. Contacts occur probabilistically in the colonies so that modeling their behaviors should be probabilistic in the case.

We first submitted our manuscript on August 5th, 2012. The first decision came on November 2nd. Just three months after our submission is very nice. The editor of Swarm Intelligence of Springer let us know that the paper needed major revisions. Three anonymous reviewers were very patient of our first manuscript that was full of ambiguous points on the modeling. We could not figure out how far we should discuss biological or ecological background about the ant behaviors. We spent almost three months for its revision, and resubmitted the revised paper on January 28th, 2013.

The second decision came quickly more than we expected, again the major revision, on February 19th. This time, two of the three reviewers gave us very suggestive comments. We really appreciate all of them. Finally, we found what kind of background information about ant behaviors that support our modeling should have been included in the manuscript. We revised everything and made the paper more readable. We again spent almost three months more. We resubmitted it on April 30.

The third decision came on May 21st. So quick was it! This time, it was minor revision. The Editor himself sent us with a list of corrections needed for our manuscript. He very much kindly pointed them out line by line. It is awesome!!! I have followed them and checked the similar points needed to be corrected and sent the paper on May 28th. On the same day, just after six hours of our submission, we have got a letter of acceptance.

When I got the letter, I just thanked Lord Jesus who has gifted us with these nice people who helped and supported me very much amiably.

I also thanked Him who allowed Evil One to tease and irritate me for these two years. Actually, on the final due date of April 30th, that Evil was almost successful to corrupt our paper with bad guys who intruded into my personal life here in Japan. But, Jesus kindly save me from that. Many bad things happened during the last one week before the submission. My co-author's laptop crushed so that he could not send me a file that contained a list of corrections. Strangers harassed me around my house. I really understood why Jesus helped me to get lawyer license in 1999. I cannot survive this kinky country without it. Can you believe this? You cannot enjoy proper medical services even in a public hospital if you don't show your lawyer license and forced the arrogant doctor and the very disgusting clerk to follow the law of the government. They suddenly changed their attitudes when I showed my lawyer badge. I cannot imagine how terribly they behave daily to other patients.
But, finally, the ultimate justice of God has overcome Evil One and the victory is always with Lord Jesus.

Without those bad things, I could not finish this work with HFL. Through the anguish, I was weak. But, when I was weak, God has strengthen me to go through it. The interdisciplinary subject like our paper is a difficult topic that consumes very much time more than a mediocre computer science study. You must persuade biology experts in the process of review. However, your future success gifts you with a great advance from just a realm of computer science. When you find the path to the answer, you can see what Lord Jesus has created in the beginning of the world. It deserves your suffering and pray. I believe so.