Turkish transparency and disclosure survey 2007: pace of improvement has slowed

The report summarizes the results of the third phase of public disclosure survey of Turkish companies. The study looks at the disclosure practices of 52 companies which are constituencies of S&P/IFC Global-Turkey and ISE-60, compares it with the previous years' results. The conclusion is that the pace of improvement in the disclosure practices of Turkish companies has slowed down with marginal improvement in the area of financial disclosure and ownership transperancy and moderate improvement in board disclosure

Turkish transperancy and disclosure survey 2008; a year of littel or no progress

Standard & Poor's Governance Services and the Corporate Governance Forum of Turkey (CGFT) at Sabanci University in Istanbul monitored and assessed corporate response to regulation and market circumstances by conducting the survey over four successive years, with the objective of providing a comparative insight into the disclosure practices of Turkish companies. Laws and regulations concerning corporate governance and their enforcement have been drastically improved during these years. The new legal and regulatory framework includes Corporate Governance Guidelines issued in 2003, directives related to audit and accounting standards and practices issued in and after 2003 by the Capital Markets Board of Turkey (CMB), a new Banking Law, and directives issued by the Banking Regulatory and Supervisory Agency. This report summarizes the finding of the fourth survey and provides an insight into the impact of the regulatory changes on disclosure. The data collected are used for further research by CGFT researchers, to analyze the relationship between disclosure and transparency, disclosure and performance, and disclosure and firm characteristics

The Biology Underlying Abnormalities of Tooth Number in Humans

Peer reviewe

Suppression of allergic airway inflammation by helminth-induced regulatory T cells

Allergic diseases mediated by T helper type (Th) 2 cell immune responses are rising dramatically in most developed countries. Exaggerated Th2 cell reactivity could result, for example, from diminished exposure to Th1 cell–inducing microbial infections. Epidemiological studies, however, indicate that Th2 cell–stimulating helminth parasites may also counteract allergies, possibly by generating regulatory T cells which suppress both Th1 and Th2 arms of immunity. We therefore tested the ability of the Th2 cell–inducing gastrointestinal nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus to influence experimentally induced airway allergy to ovalbumin and the house dust mite allergen Der p 1. Inflammatory cell infiltrates in the lung were suppressed in infected mice compared with uninfected controls. Suppression was reversed in mice treated with antibodies to CD25. Most notably, suppression was transferable with mesenteric lymph node cells (MLNC) from infected animals to uninfected sensitized mice, demonstrating that the effector phase was targeted. MLNC from infected animals contained elevated numbers of CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) T cells, higher TGF-β expression, and produced strong interleukin (IL)-10 responses to parasite antigen. However, MLNC from IL-10–deficient animals transferred suppression to sensitized hosts, indicating that IL-10 is not the primary modulator of the allergic response. Suppression was associated with CD4(+) T cells from MLNC, with the CD4(+)CD25(+) marker defining the most active population. These data support the contention that helminth infections elicit a regulatory T cell population able to down-regulate allergen induced lung pathology in vivo