Just say “Ni!” October 13, 2009
Posted by Catherine in : Catalog Tip, Life in the library, Noteworthy Resources, Tips for students , add a commentDo midterms and research papers have you crying out “Run away! Run away!?” Take a study break and just say “ni!” to them for awhile with Duke Libraries Monty Python resources. You’ll find videos, books, audio, and music in our catalog.
Knights who say ni
Why? Because, those zany blokes are celebrating their 40th anniversary in NY City this week. Besides, it’s a proven fact that laughing yourself silly is an effective antidote to stress. According to a literature review in the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing & Mental Health Services 1
There are several beneficial efforts attributed to humor and laughter, including improved immune function, increased pain tolerance, and decreased stress response.
If you must rationalize it as schoolwork, you might hone your persuasive argument skills with The Argument Clinic
I don’t think there’s a punch-line scheduled, is there?
1 MacDonald, C. (2004). A chuckle a day keeps the doctor away: therapeutic humor & laughter. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing & Mental Health Services, 42(3), 18. http://search.ebscohost.com
Economic Effects of Migration September 16, 2009
Posted by Christof Galli in : Noteworthy Resources , 1 comment so farOne of the most pressing issues in global policy development is migration. The 2005 report by The Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) to the UN Secretary General Kofi Anan outlines the dimensions and dynamics of international migration. The report has focused the attention of a number of inter-governmental organizations (IGO) and agencies on a variety of aspects created by migration. While the 127 member-country International Organization for Migration (IOM) is the leading body to take on an advocacy role for the implementation of “safe and orderly migration” through research and policy development, agencies such as the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been monitoring monetary streams, called remittances, which are created by migrants who send part of their earnings back to their country of origin. These transfers have reached, according to a WB estimate, $397 billion in 2008, $305 billion of which were sent to developing countries by 190 million migrants or 3% of the world population. A recent IMF publication (Occasional Paper 259) traces the Macroeconomic Consequences of Remittances. The World Bank’s ‘Migration and Development Brief 10′ provides an Outlook for Remittance Flows 2009-2011: Remittances Expected to Fall by 7-10 Percent in 2009. The brief is accompanied by country-by-country data in Excel format. Figures on monthly remittance flows for selected countries are also available. These data update the Migration & Remittances Factbook 2008 (check availability @ Duke), a “snapshot of migration and remittances data for all countries, regions and income groups of the world, compiled from various sources.” The Migration & Remittances page on the World Bank site offers access to more papers and publications related to this topic. In addition, the World Bank blog People Move provides timely updates on emerging research findings and trends. It goes without saying that the services which send the money back to the migrants’ home countries are not free. The WB traces the cost of these transfers on its Remittance Prices Worldwide site.
It is to be hoped that the sheer magnitude of these transactions and their economic impact will help to focus attention on the humanitarian and ethical issues underlying the process of migration, issues which are often, despite the apparent beneficial financial results, less than benign.
