Cold plasma (CP) is an innovative processing technology that effectively preserves product quality. This study applies CP to noni juice and evaluates its effects on flavor and bioactive compounds. CP reduced PPO activity of noni juice by 22% and increased POD activity by 60%. Total phenolic content increased from 713.18 to 848.12 μg GAE/mL and total flavonoid content peaked at 554.67 μg RE/mL under CP-treatment at 50 V. In contrast, iridoid content remained stable at approximately 1044.13 μg CAT/mL across all treatments. Metabolomics analysis revealed significant compositional alterations in noni juice, with marked increases observed in various flavonoids, terpenoids, and amino acids. Notably, HS-SPME-GC-MS analysis revealed a reduction in off-flavor fatty acids and a increase in esters such as methyl octanoate, methyl decanoate, etc., leading to improved flavor. Overall, CP significantly improved the flavor characteristics of noni juice and concurrently enhanced various bioactive compounds, thereby strengthening its potential for industrial application.

Noni is valued for its diverse bioactive ingredients, but the quality and flavor evolution of fermented noni juice (FJ) during storage remain unclear. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying quality and flavor evolution in FJ fermented with Acetobacter sp. AN02 using electronic sensory evaluation, volatilomics, and metabolomics. The browning index increased significantly during storage, whereas the pH of FJ remained relatively stable. Decreases in reducing sugars and total amino acids further indicated the progression of nonenzymatic browning. E-sensory analysis revealed increased sourness and higher overall flavor intensity. Volatile acids were the predominant flavor compounds, and the contents of neral and limonene increased markedly, strengthening the citrus and floral-fruity aroma of FJ. Untargeted metabolomics revealed that storage-induced changes primarily involved aromatic amino acid and plant secondary metabolism-related pathways, underscoring non-volatile precursor remodeling as a key driver of flavor evolution. These findings provide support for storage quality control and shelf-life evaluation of FJ.

Fermentation improves medicinal plants in functional foods, nutraceuticals, and phytomedicine. Many plants have bioactive compounds trapped in complex matrices, limited by low bioavailability, toxins, anti-nutritional compounds, bitterness, astringency, and/or off-flavors. Recent studies show fermentation enhances plant value through bioactivity modulation, detoxification, safety, and sensory optimization. Effects are achieved via the release of bound phytochemicals, polyphenol transformation, new metabolites, reduction of toxins, microbe control, and reshaping of aroma and taste. Emerging systems like moringa, noni, and chaga show microbial biotransformation that addresses substrate challenges and supports product development. However, raw material variability, inconsistent protocols, unclear mechanisms, and limited validation restrict progress. Future studies should emphasize standardized systems, multi-omics-based mechanism analysis, host and microbiome evaluation, precision fermentation, and product design with regulatory considerations. Overall, fermentation provides a promising framework for functional products with improved bioactivity, safety, sensory quality, and translational potential.

Cervical cancer remains a major public health concern in Sarawak, East Malaysia, which reports the highest incidence in the country. Prophylactic human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme currently uses bivalent (2 v) and quadrivalent (4 v) vaccines targeting HPV16 and 18 (and additional low-risk HPV6 and 11 for 4 v). However, the alignment of these vaccines with locally circulating high-risk HPV (hrHPV) genotypes is poorly understood. We conducted a serial cross-sectional study involving 1,108 women in Sarawak, Malaysia from 2018 to 2024. Self-collected high vaginal swabs were analyzed using the Anyplex™ II HPV HR Detection Kit for 14 hrHPV genotypes. Demographic data and vaccination status were collected. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests were used to evaluate associations between hrHPV positivity and demographic variables. The overall hrHPV prevalence was 10.2% (95% CI: 8.6-12.1%). Among positive cases, 87.6% had single, 10.6% dual, and 1.8% triple genotype infections. The most frequent genotypes were HPV18 (19.2%), HPV52 (16.9%), HPV39 (14.6%), and HPV51 (10.0%). Genotypes covered by the 2 v/4 v vaccines (HPV16/18) accounted for 25.4% of infections, and those included in the nonavalent (9 v) vaccine extended coverage to 56.2%. Notably, 43.8% of infections were due to non-2v/4 v/9 v vaccine genotypes. No significant associations were found between HPV positivity and age group, ethnicity, geographic division, or vaccination status. Our findings indicate a mismatch between current HPV vaccines and the prevalent hrHPV genotypes in Sarawak. While the 9 v vaccine offers improved coverage, a substantial proportion of infections are due to non-vaccine types. Strengthening molecular surveillance, improving access to screening, and addressing vaccine-derived complacency are critical to achieving cervical cancer elimination in this region.

Noni fruit (Morinda citrifolia L.) essential oil (NFEO) is a promising preservative against Listeria monocytogenes; however, its mechanism of action remains poorly understood. Using integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses, we investigated the antibacterial mechanism of NFEO against L. monocytogenes ATCC 19111 and assessed its potential for salmon preservation. Chemical analysis showed that NFEO was composed primarily of octanoic acid (71.55%) and hexanoic acid (28.08%). NFEO exhibited potent antibacterial effects characterized by increased membrane permeability, dissipation of membrane potential, leakage of intracellular contents, and marked morphological damage. Notably, NFEO at MIC did not cause complete bacterial death after 4 h, indicating a bacteriostatic rather than bactericidal effect. Integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic data indicated disruptions in multiple cellular processes, including lipid and energy metabolism, ribosome biogenesis, quorum-sensing pathways, and amino acid homeostasis. Ten DEGs from relevant pathways were validated by RT-qPCR, showing consistent trends with the transcriptomic data. When applied to salmon, NFEO inhibited L. monocytogenes and spoilage bacteria and delayed quality deterioration by preserving key freshness indicators. These findings provide a mechanistic basis for developing NFEO as a multi-target natural preservative.

Federated learning (FL) is a promising framework that models distributed machine learning while protecting the privacy of clients. However, FL suffers performance degradation from heterogeneous and limited data. To alleviate the degradation, we present a novel personalized Bayesian FL approach named pFedBayes. By using the trained global distribution from the server as the prior distribution of each client, each client adjusts its own distribution by minimizing the sum of the reconstruction error over its personalized data and the KL divergence with the downloaded global distribution. Then, we propose a sparse personalized Bayesian FL approach named sFedBayes to enhance the inference efficiency. To overcome the extreme heterogeneity in non-i.i.d. data, we propose a clustered Bayesian FL model named cFedbayes by learning different prior distributions for different clients. Theoretical analysis gives the generalization error bound of three approaches and shows that the generalization error rates of the proposed approaches achieve minimax optimality up to a logarithmic factor. Moreover, cFedBayes achieves a cluster-level generalization error bound, rather than a single uniform bound in pFedBayes. Numerous experiments demonstrate that the proposed approaches have better performance than other advanced personalized methods on private models in the presence of heterogeneous and limited data.

Phenylpropanoids and flavonoids are major classes of bioactive metabolites that contribute to plant defense and functional value in noni (Morinda citrifolia). Although feruloyl-CoA 6'-hydroxylase 1 (F6'H1) is recognized as a key enzyme in coumarin biosynthesis, its broader role in secondary metabolic regulation and antifungal responses in perennial medicinal plants remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the regulatory function of McF6'H1 by transgenic analysis, HPLC-MS/MS-based metabolomics, and extract-based antifungal assays in noni. Based on an established genetic transformation system, stable McF6'H1 overexpression (OE) and RNA interference (RNAi) lines were obtained and subsequently subjected to HPLC-MS/MS based metabolomic profiling and antifungal evaluation against Phytophthora cactorum, powdery mildew, and Diaporthales. Metabolomic analysis showed that altered McF6'H1 expression was associated with pronounced changes in secondary metabolism, including phenylpropanoid, flavonoid, flavone, amino acid, and organic acid pathways. McF6'H1 overexpression was associated with increased accumulation of several phenylpropanoid and flavonoid related metabolites, including rutin, luteoloside, and other flavonol derivatives, and with stronger antifungal activity against a powdery mildew-associated fungal isolate and a Diaporthales fungal isolate. Interestingly, both OE and RNAi lines showed increased inhibition of P. cactorum, possibly because altered McF6'H1 expression triggered metabolic compensation or flux redistribution within the phenylpropanoid/coumarin network, leading to non-linear changes in antimicrobial metabolites. Overall, our results indicated that McF6'H1 was involved in phenylpropanoid/flavonoid metabolic reprogramming and antifungal responses in noni, providing a basis for further studies on metabolic regulation and disease resistance in medicinal plants.

Class incremental learning (CIL) requires an agent to learn distinct tasks consecutively with knowledge retention against forgetting. Problems impeding the practice of CIL methods are twofold: (1) prompt update on non-i.i.d batch streams without boundary, namely the harsher online task-free CIL (OTCIL) scenario; (2) CIL methods suffer from heavy forgetting on learning long task streams, as shown in Fig. 1(a). To achieve efficient decision-making, the ensemble deep random vector functional link network (edRVFL) with forward regularization (-F) is proposed to replace the canonical Ridge (-R), reducing more regrets during OTCIL. Considering continuous distribution drifting on long stream, we further propose edRVFL-kF to adjust the intervention intensity of forward knowledge and derive incremental updates. edRVFL-kF can effectively avoid replay, retraining, and catastrophic forgetting while achieving lower regret over -R. Moreover, to improve robustness on non-i.i.d stream and eliminate intractable tuning of -kF, we rebuild with online Bayesian learning and propose the plug-and-play edRVFL-kF-Bayes, enabling all hard ks in multiple sub-learners to self-adapt to ever-changing distribution and optimization in OTCIL. Experiments were conducted on image datasets, including multiple evaluations, ablation tests, estimated forward, and compatibility studies, which distinctly validate the efficacy of edRVFL-kF-Bayes.

Online Class-Incremental Learning (OCIL) enables models to learn continuously from non-i.i.d. data streams. Since samples of the data streams can be seen only once, it is more suitable for real-world scenarios compared to offline learning. However, this constraint intensifies the challenge for OCIL in maintaining an appropriate balance between stability and plasticity. Moreover, under stricter memory buffer constraints in real world, current replay-based methods are less effective. While ensemble methods improve plasticity, they often struggle with stability. Inspired by the Global Workspace Theory (GWT), we propose a novel approach that enhances ensemble learning through a Global Workspace Model (GWM)-a shared, implicit memory that guides the learning of multiple student models. The GWM is formed by fusing the parameters of all students within each training batch, capturing the historical learning trajectory and serving as a dynamic anchor for knowledge consolidation. Like the broadcasting mechanism of GWT, the GWM is redistributed periodically to students, stabilizing learning and promoting cross-task consistency. In addition, we introduce a multi-level collaborative distillation mechanism. It enforces peer-to-peer consistency among students and preserves historical knowledge by aligning each student with the GWM. As a result, student models remain adaptable to new tasks while maintaining previously learned knowledge, striking a better balance between stability and plasticity. Extensive experiments on three standard OCIL benchmarks show that our method delivers significant performance improvement for several OCIL models across various memory budgets. The code is available at https://github.com/susususushi/GWM.

Hypertension represents a significant health burden worldwide, and traditional medicinal plants historically used by indigenous communities such as the Anak Dalam tribe to manage blood pressure offer promising ethnopharmacological opportunities for developing accessible and culturally acceptable antihypertensive therapies. This review summarizes the traditional uses of 34 well-known and promising medicinal plants utilized by the Anak Dalam tribe and assesses their potential for treating hypertension-related diseases. The results revealed that nine medicinal plants used by the Anak Dalam tribe in Jambi, Indonesia, in developing antihypertensive therapies. In this study, the medicinal properties of the following species are discussed briefly, and their benefits are highlighted: turmeric (Curcuma longa Linn). garlic (Allium sativum Linn). noni (Morinda citrifolia Linn). lime (Citrus aurantiifolia (Christm). Swingle), celery (Apium graveolens Linn). starfruit (Averrhoa bilimbi Linn). cat's whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus var. aristatus), soursop (Annona muricata L). and ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe). According to the review of the literature, these plants were tested using various methods: turmeric and partially celery on male Wistar rats induced with deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA); garlic in a randomized clinical trial; noni with 8% NaCl and prednisone induction; lime in a heated palm oil model; bilimbi with 0.8% NaCl induction and human patients; cat's whiskers in phenylephrine-induced rats and a clinical cohort; soursop on normotensive and ethanol/sucrose/epinephrine-induced rats; and ginger by an unspecified invasive method. Data from the references suggest that the extracts reliably show notable decreases in blood pressure and adjustments in heart rate, mainly due to their elevated levels of flavonoids, phenolics, organosulfurs, coumarins, phthalides, and acetogenins compounds known for their antihypertensive effects. Although encouraging, additional studies are needed to create safe and effective pharmaceutical products derived from these plants. They have the potential to serve as a natural alternative to synthetic antihypertensive medications, possibly providing comparable results with fewer adverse effects. Furthermore, this review serves as an important reference for future studies on ethnomedicines that contain phytochemicals.

Noni (Morinda citrifolia L.) is a natural dietary therapeutic plant native to the selenium-rich tropical region of Chengmai, Hainan, China. It exhibits anti-tumor, anti-aging, and lipid-lowering properties; however, the precise mechanism by which it inhibits cancer progression remains unclear. This study investigates the mechanism by which noni juice targets ferroptosis in gastric cancer (GC) and analyzes its bioactive components. First, the efficacy of noni juice was evaluated using an in vivo orthotopic gastric cancer model, while its blood-absorbed components were analyzed via UPLC-Q Exactive MS. Second, network pharmacology and target validation were combined to identify the active ingredients, their targets, and associated pathways. Finally, MKN-45 and SNU-216 cell lines were used to explore the mechanisms by which noni juice inhibits cell proliferation, promotes lipid oxidation, and modifies mitochondrial morphology, thereby inducing ferroptosis in vitro. Results showed that noni juice significantly suppressed gastric cancer progression in mice. UPLC-Q Exactive MS analysis identified flavonoids-including apigenin, naringenin, and curcumol-as major blood metabolites. Both in vivo and in vitro experiments demonstrated that noni juice induced lipid peroxidation, leading to ferroptosis. Treatment with ferroptosis inhibitors successfully reversed this effect. Mechanistically, noni juice regulates the GPX4/HO-1 axis to induce ferroptosis. Pharmacological activation leads to the translocation of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) into the nucleus. This process increases the accumulation of lipid peroxidation and malondialdehyde induced by noni. Together, these data support that noni fruit juice suppresses gastric cancer progression and is associated with lipid peroxidation-driven ferroptotic injury involving the Nrf2/HO-1-GPX4 axis.

Two new pyridinium zwitterions, (S)-3-phenyl-2(3-pyridinol-1-ium)-propanoate (1) and (S)-4-methyl-2-(3-pyridinol-1-ium)-pentanoate (2), together with five known alkaloids (3 - 7), were isolated and identified from noni juice, a health beverage made by fermenting the fruit of Morinda citrifolia L. Based on particular rotation data and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) computations, the absolute configurations of 1 and 2 were determined. The anti-gout properties of compounds 1-7 were assessed by measuring their capacity to restore cell viability in monosodium urate (MSU)-injured Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs). These findings provide references for the analysis of pharmacologically active ingredients in noni juice.