The efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has been tested by different types of research. Its weak, and more clever form, postulates that the past trading prices and information of a stock (equity, commodity, derivative...) is entirely reflected on its value, meaning that historical trading data have no potential for predicting the behavior of future stock’s prices. Following this rule, we have as a direct consequence that no logical rules of trading based on historical data should have a positive excess return, that is economically or statistically significant, over some chosen benchmark portfolio. Of course this holds in theory. What is interesting to us is to verify if there is a margin between the practitioner’s and academic point of view, allowing portfolio managers to make profit in a systematic way.
Pulmonary hypertension is an important predictor of mortality in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (1-3). Various factors, including endothelial dysfunction, inflammation, and hypoxia, have been recognized as potential contributors to the development of secondary pulmonary hypertension in emphysema; but its pathogenesis has not been fully clarified.
Nevertheless, it is generally recognized that vascular remodeling of small pulmonary arteries is an essential morphological feature of pulmonary hypertension; narrowing and diminution of the small pulmonary vessels have been shown on conventional angiography in emphysema (4-6). However, to our knowledge, the in vivo relationship between pulmonary hypertension and the magnitude of small pulmonary vessel morphological change has not been quantitatively assessed in severe emphysema.
Obesity is recognized as a major public health problem in America. The number of overweight, obese, and morbidly obese Americans has steadily increased and now represents the most challenging public health issue in the U.S. Obesity initiates and contributes to a wide variety of serious health problems. Controlling and treating obesity through non-surgical interventions has proven largely unsuccessful for the majority of patients, leading to increased interest in surgical procedures aimed at curbing hunger and reducing caloric intake.
