Since the release of former Secretary Margaret Heckler's Secretary's Task Force Report on Black and Minority Health more than two decades ago, excess death from chronic diseases and other conditions between African Americans and Whites have increased. The conclusion of that report emphasized excess death and thus clinical care, paying little attention to the sociocultural environment and its ef...

In this work we introduce Quixote, a system that allows non-programmers to train believable virtual agents and robots using the sociocultural knowledge present in stories. Quixote uses a corpus of exemplar stories to engineer a reward function that can be used to train virtual agents to exhibit desired behaviors using reinforcement learning. We show the effectiveness of our system with a case s...

Characteristics of the new millennium suggest that we give students the experience of working in multi-cultural distributed teams to prepare them for present and future organizational demands. In general, students respond positively to this type of learning activity. However, we know little in terms of what they are really learning, how to improve the environment in which that learning takes pl...

In most parts of the world, globalization has become an unstoppable and potent force that impacts everyday life and international relations. The articles in this issue draw on theoretical insights from diverse perspectives (clinical psychology, consumer research, organizational behavior, political psychology, and cultural psychology) to offer nuanced understanding of individuals’ psychological ...

In this study, we tested Petrie and Greenleaf's (2007) model of bulimic symptoms in two independent samples of female collegiate swimmers/divers and gymnasts. Structural equation modeling revealed support for the model, although it also suggested additional pathways. Specifically, general societal pressures regarding weight and body were related to the internalization of those ideals and, subse...

BACKGROUND The first week of life is the time of greatest risk of death and disability, and is also associated with many traditional beliefs and practices. Identifying sick newborns in the community and referring them to health facilities is a key strategy to reduce deaths. Although a growing area of interest, there remains a lack of data on the role of sociocultural norms and practices on newb...