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Introduction: Hyperprogressive disease (HPD) is a state of accelerated tumor growth from cancer immunotherapy, associated with poor outcome. The reported incidence is 6% to 29% among studies using varying definitions of HPD, with no predictive biomarkers. Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) are prognostic and predictive for immunotherapy benefit in various tumor types, but have only been tested for correlation with HPD in one study. Objectives: The objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of HPD in solid tumor patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in a real-world setting, and to assess clinicopathological features as potential biomarkers for HPD. Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of solid tumor patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors at a single institution. Imaging pre-immunotherapy and postimmunotherapy were assessed for HPD, and correlated against clinicopathological factors, including TILs and programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) status through archival tumor assessment. HPD was defined per Matos et al as response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST) progressive disease, minimum increase in measurable lesions of 10 mm, plus increase of ≥40% in sum of target lesions compared with baseline and/or increase of ≥20% in sum of target lesions compared with baseline plus new lesions in at least 2 different organs. Results: HPD occurred in 11 of 87 patients (13%), and associated with inferior overall survival (median 5.5 months vs 18.3 months, P = .002). However, on multivariate analysis, only liver metastases (hazard ratio [HR] 4.66, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.27-9.56, P < .001) and PD-L1 status (HR 0.53, 95% CI 0.30-0.95, P = .03) were significantly associated with survival. Presence of liver metastases correlated with occurence of HPD (P = .01). Age, sex, and monotherapy versus combination immunotherapy were not predictive for HPD. PD-L1 status and TILs were not associated with HPD. Conclusions: We found 13% HPD among solid tumor patients treated with immunotherapy, consistent with the range reported in prior series. Assessment for HPD is feasible outside of a clinical trials setting, using modified criteria that require comparison of 2 imaging studies. Liver metastases were associated with risk of HPD, while TILs and PD-L1 status were not predictive for HPD.

The understanding of charge carrier distributions is fundamental to our knowledge of laser systems. In semiconductor lasers, because of the propensity of charge carriers to undergo extremely fast momentum relaxation 1 , 2 , they accumulate at band extrema—that is, they have a small wavevector close to k  ≈ 0 in direct-gap semiconductors. Conventional understanding suggests that the device-level physics occurs at these band extrema, including population inversion for lasing. This behaviour is universal in diode lasers 3 , 4 , interband cascade lasers 5 and quantum cascade lasers 6 , 7 . Here, we report on a quantum cascade laser with an energy configuration able to establish local population inversion high in k -space. We observe dual-wavelength emission from two discrete optical transitions. Temperature-dependent performance attributes show that the two transitions are highly coupled; competition for charge carriers is apparent from the anti correlated behaviour. The two optical transitions represent a conventional quantum cascade laser transition at k  ≈ 0 and another laser transition from non-thermal electrons near k  ≈ 3.6 × 10 8  m −1 . Scientists report a dual-wavelength quantum cascade laser that lases at wave factors k  ≈ 0 and k  ≈ 3.6 × 10 8  m −1 . The finding may change the conventional idea that population inversion of lasing occurs only at k  ≈ 0 and give ways on designing intersub-band devices with high k -space.

For decades, the earnings from farming in many developing countries have been depressed because of a pro-urban, anti-agricultural bias in own-country policies and because governments in more well off countries are favoring their farmers by imposing import barriers and providing subsidies. These policies have reduced national and global economic welfare, inhibited economic growth, and added to inequality and poverty because no less than three-quarters of the billion poorest people in the world have been dependent directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihoods (World Bank 2007). The purpose of the rest of this chapter is to outline the analytical framework and the common empirical methodology adopted in the global and national case studies reported in subsequent chapters, to summarize and compare the modeling results from the global and national models, and to draw some general policy implications. The findings are based on three chapters (part two) that each use a global model to examine the effects of farm and nonfarm price and trade policies on global poverty and the distribution of poverty within and across many of the countries identified, plus ten individual developing-country studies (parts three-five) spanning the three key regions: Asia (where nearly two-thirds of the world's poor live), Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.

This special issue contributes to the natural resource economics literature by shining a light on the specific challenges and opportunities faced by developing countries that have recently become dependent on natural resources or are particularly exposed to climate change. It is composed of five studies on countries from all regions of the developing world, involving a variety of natural resources and policy issues. Four of the five studies illustrate how computable general equilibrium models are particularly well-suited, despite their relatively limited past use, to the analysis of natural resources. All five studies are led by researchers based in these countries, providing unique insights into the specific local context. The studies underscore the extreme vulnerability that the introduction of significant natural resource revenues and climate change can create in developing countries. They also show how the choice of appropriate policies to avoid the resource curse varies according to country-specific economic conditions.

Poverty is a concept that concerns the individual. However, the most common poverty indicator—income (or expenditures)—is measured at the household level and then simply divided by the number of members, or “adult equivalents,” in the household to obtain individual values. This assumes that all household members share fortunes and misfortunes equally, which is particularly problematic in the case of children. Parental altruism might lead some adults to sacrifice part of their resources in favor of their children. Alternatively, as a survival strategy, some parents may sacrifice the weakest of their children. This paper uses a recent and innovative Bangladeshi survey, including detailed information on individual calorie intake, to shed light on two questions. First, what is the role played by intra-household allocations in mitigating or exacerbating child poverty? Second, what is the scale of the measurement errors resulting from not considering intra-household allocation in the measurement of child poverty?

Using a panel of firm-level data, this paper assesses the effects of Cameroon's trade liberalization in the late 1980s and early 1990s on firm productivity growth in the manufacturing sector. A two-step approach is employed. First, a single production function for the whole manufacturing sector is run on the pooled sample of pre-and post-reform periods as well as separately on the pre-and immediately post-reform periods using the Levinsohn and Petrin methodology, and firm productivity indexes are derived. Second, the correlation between trade liberalization and firm productivity growth rates is examined in a regression framework. We focus on the interaction between trade liberalization shocks and firm, industry and environment characteristics. We find a systematic shift in the firm productivity distributions from the pre- to post-liberalization periods in the direction of higher productivity. The manufacturing sector total factor productivity drops in the pre-reform and improves considerably in the post-reform periods. The estimations using pooled pre-and post-liberalization as well as sub-periods firm productivity growth rates show that reductions in effective protection and, even more, increases in export shares are the principal mechanisms of firm productivity improvements. Interestingly, firm, industry and business environment characteristics such as capital intensity, size, age, age squared, competition across industries, and political instability appear to have no influence on the effect of trade liberalization on firm productivity growth.