The growing interest of IS researchers in using the theory of Affordances for studying the uses and consequences of the IT artefact calls for an integrative view on the subject. The originating literature is dispersed and the definition of the concept of affordance varies in these studies. With this paper we offer a framework for organizing the existing interdisciplinary literature modeling aff...

In this paper, it is argued that Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) should be extended to also include what may be called Critical Context Studies (CCS). After a summary of the new theory of context, defined in terms of special mental models in episodic memory, subjectively representing the ‘definition of the communicative situation’ by the participants, it is argued how a critical analysis of te...

Understanding the policy cycle, as well as scrutinizing the text of hidden and obvious policies and rules, requires a model of discourse analysis based on which discursive ap-proaches of policy makers are understood and estimated. However, when it comes to presenting a policy model, we have to use the views of policy theorists to see how a problem as a "public goods" can be found in the policy ...

objectives: the current study aimed to first assess the quality, popularity and importance of websites providing persian health-related information, and second to evaluate the correlation of the popularity and importance ranking with quality score on the internet. materials and methods: the sample websites were identified by entering the health-related keywords into four most popular search eng...

In “Buying Health: the Costs of Commercialization and an Alternative Philosophy”, Larry R. Churchill and Shelley C. Churchill discuss the commercialization of health and, in particular, the commercialization of nutrition. In this commentary on their article, I draw a connection between Churchill and Churchill’s account of the commercialization of nutrition and Michael Pollan’s critique of “nutr...

Background: Infertility problem affects young couples. One of the known causes of spermatogenic disorder is chemotherapy in patients with cancer. Since dividing cells are mainly affected by anticancer drugs, the aim of the present study is to investigate the preventive effect of GnRH antagonist on spermatogenic cell apoptosis produced by anticancer drug. Materials and Methods: In the present st...