HiHGNN: Accelerating HGNNs through Parallelism and Data Reusability Exploitation

Heterogeneous graph neural networks (HGNNs) have emerged as powerful algorithms for processing heterogeneous graphs (HetGs), widely used in many critical fields. To capture both structural and semantic information in HetGs, HGNNs first aggregate the neighboring feature vectors for each vertex in each semantic graph and then fuse the aggregated results across all semantic graphs for each vertex. Unfortunately, existing graph neural network accelerators are ill-suited to accelerate HGNNs. This is because they fail to efficiently tackle the specific execution patterns and exploit the high-degree parallelism as well as data reusability inside and across the processing of semantic graphs in HGNNs. In this work, we first quantitatively characterize a set of representative HGNN models on GPU to disclose the execution bound of each stage, inter-semantic-graph parallelism, and inter-semantic-graph data reusability in HGNNs. Guided by our findings, we propose a high-performance HGNN accelerator, HiHGNN, to alleviate the execution bound and exploit the newfound parallelism and data reusability in HGNNs. Specifically, we first propose a bound-aware stage-fusion methodology that tailors to HGNN acceleration, to fuse and pipeline the execution stages being aware of their execution bounds. Second, we design an independency-aware parallel execution design to exploit the inter-semantic-graph parallelism. Finally, we present a similarity-aware execution scheduling to exploit the inter-semantic-graph data reusability. Compared to the state-of-the-art software framework running on NVIDIA GPU T4 and GPU A100, HiHGNN respectively achieves an average 41.5$\times$ and 8.6$\times$ speedup as well as 106$\times$ and 73$\times$ energy efficiency with quarter the memory bandwidth of GPU A100

Serum Containing Tao-Hong-Si-Wu Decoction Induces Human Endothelial Cell VEGF Production via PI3K/Akt-eNOS Signaling

Tao-Hong-Si-Wu decoction (TSD) is a famous traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and widely used for ischemic disease in China. TSD medicated serum was prepared after oral administration of TSD (1.6 g/kg) twice a day for 3 days in rats. TSD medicated serum induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) proliferation, VEGF secretion, and nitric oxide (NO) production. These promoted effects of TSD were partly inhibited by treatment with PI3K inhibitor (LY294002) or eNOS inhibitor (L-NAME), respectively, and completely inhibited by treatment with LY294002 and L-NAME simultaneously. Western blot analysis findings further indicated that TSD medicated serum upregulated p-Akt and p-eNOS expressions, which were significantly inhibited by LY294002 or L-NAME and completely inhibited by both LY294002 and L-NAME; these results indicated that TSD medicated serum induced HUVECs VEGF expression via PI3K/Akt-eNOS signaling. TSD medicated serum contains hydroxysafflor yellow A, ferulic acid, and ligustilide detected by UPLC with standards, so these effect of TSD medicated serum may be associated with these three active compounds absorbed in serum

Molecular Russian dolls

The host-guest recognition between two macrocycles to form hierarchical non-intertwined ring-in-ring assemblies remains an interesting and challenging target in noncovalent synthesis. Herein, we report the design and characterization of a box-in-box assembly on the basis of host-guest radical-pairing interactions between two rigid diradical dicationic cyclophanes. One striking feature of the box-in-box complex is its ability to host various 1,4-disubstituted benzene derivatives inside as a third component in the cavity of the smaller of the two diradical dicationic cyclophanes to produce hierarchical Russian doll like assemblies. These results highlight the utility of matching the dimensions of two different cyclophanes as an efficient approach for developing new hybrid supramolecular assemblies with radical-paired ring-in-ring complexes and smaller neutral guest molecules

Ivermectin induces apoptosis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma via mitochondrial pathway

Background: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is the most predominant primary malignant tumor among worldwide, especially in China. To date, the successful treatment remains a mainly clinical challenge, it is imperative to develop successful therapeutic agents. Methods: The anti-proliferative effect of ivermectin on ESCC is investigated in cell model and in nude mice model. Cell apoptosis was assessed using flow cytometry, TUNEL assay and western blotting. Mitochondrial dysfunction was determined by reactive oxygen species accumulation, mitochondrial membrane potential and ATP levels. Results: Our results determined that ivermectin significantly inhibited the proliferation of ESCC cells in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we found that ivermectin markedly mediated mitochondrial dysfunction and induced apoptosis of ESCC cells, which indicated the anti-proliferative effect of ivermectin on ESCC cells was implicated in mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. Mechanistically, ivermectin significantly triggered ROS accumulation and inhibited the activation of NF-κB signaling pathway and increased the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2. Conclusions: These finding indicated that ivermectin has significant anti-tumour potential for ESSC and may be a potential therapeutic candidate against ESCC

Molecular Russian dolls

The host-guest recognition between two macrocycles to form hierarchical non-intertwined ring-in-ring assemblies remains an interesting and challenging target in noncovalent synthesis. Herein, we report the design and characterization of a box-in-box assembly on the basis of host-guest radical-pairing interactions between two rigid diradical dicationic cyclophanes. One striking feature of the box-in-box complex is its ability to host various 1,4-disubstituted benzene derivatives inside as a third component in the cavity of the smaller of the two diradical dicationic cyclophanes to produce hierarchical Russian doll like assemblies. These results highlight the utility of matching the dimensions of two different cyclophanes as an efficient approach for developing new hybrid supramolecular assemblies with radical-paired ring-in-ring complexes and smaller neutral guest molecules