## 1 Introduction  
_Benincasa hispida_ (Thunb.) Cogn., commonly called wax gourd or winter melon, is a popular vegetable crop widely cultivated in China. It is commonly used in Chinese cuisine, especially in soups, stews, and the chafing dish, as well as in desserts and drinks. Wax gourd is typically oblong or round in shape and can range in size from a few kilograms to over 20 kg. Wax gourd was generally cut into pieces for sizing and weighing when sold in local vegetable markets and supermarkets of China. Recently, fresh-cut or ready-to-cook wax gourd slices became popular due to their convenience for distribution, display, and cooking. However, the fresh-cut process may bring greater risks of microbial contamination compared to thermal processing [1]. _Salmonella enterica_, a common foodborne pathogen, causes gastroenteritis, septicaemia, and even death in humans [2]. It caused approximately 40-80% of foodborne bacterial outbreaks in China, according to different data sources [3, 4]. There are no reliable methods widely accepted for inactivating bacteria, extending shelf-life, and compromising vegetable quality [5]. It is, therefore, imperative to develop more preservation methods and to find a reliable prediction model for microbial population in fresh-cut wax gourd.  
Tea polyphenols (TP) have antioxidant, anticancer, antiviral, antibacterial, and other physiological functions [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. The antimicrobial activity of TP has been well established, and it has been used in the processing of various foods such as bread [11], cake [12], meat, fish [13, 14, 15, 16], and fruit products [17, 18] in recent years. Ultrasound has been used for the pasteurization of liquid foods. This is because ultrasonic treatment generates alternating low- and high-pressure waves in liquids, leading to the formation and violent collapse of small bubbles. This phenomenon is known as cavitation, and it causes strong hydrodynamic shear-forces, intense pressures, and high temperatures during bubble formation and collapse. The use of ultrasound processing combined with sublethal or lethal temperatures, the so called thermosonication (TS), has been shown to have potential applications in food preservation. It leads to better quality (flavor, texture, and appearance) than conventional heat treatment [19; 20; 21]. Furthermore, when used with chemical sanitizer, ultrasonic or thermosonic treatment can improve the penetration of the chemical sanitizer through the cellular membrane, resulting in an increased sanitizing efficiency [22; 23; 24].  
The adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), also known as the adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system, was first proposed [25] as a synergic hybrid system that combines the advantages of artificial neural networks and fuzzy inference systems. It uses a hybrid learning procedure to develop a set of fuzzy if-then rules with appropriate membership functions (MFs) from the input-output data pairs. ANFIS has simple and effective learning algorithms with high training speeds, faster convergence, and better results compared to other learning techniques. Therefore, ANFIS has been used as a modelling and prediction tool in agriculture and food technology [26; 27; 28].  
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of tea polyphenols combined with thermosonication treatment on the survival of _S. enterica_ in fresh-cut wax gourd during storage. Additionally, the study also aimed to develop and evaluate an ANFIS model for predicting the population of _S. enterica_ using various types of membership functions.