Floating on a Sea of Funny Money: An Analysis of Money Laundering Through Miami Real Estate and the Federal Government’s Attempt to Stop it

Miami is experiencing a money laundering controversy the likes of which have not been seen since the “Cocaine Cowboys” era of 1980’s Miami. Condominiums and other mega developments are popping up at an unprecedented pace, immediately after the housing market crash that caused the Great Recession. Adding to this questionable boom in development is the fact that the vast majority of Miami’s population cannot afford to live in places like these. So, the question presented is who is fueling this explosion in development? Criminals, that’s who. Federal agents believe criminals are buying coveted Miami real estate through shell companies to launder their ill–gotten money. In response to this crisis, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) that requires Miami title insurers to report information about the identities of those hiding behind shell companies to buy real estate in cash purchases. Through the order, FinCEN aims to gain information about and deter potential money launderers. The GTO places Miami squarely in the cross–hairs of FinCEN’s anti–money laundering regime. However, there is a problem: the GTO will not actually prevent money laundering. There are fundamental issues with the GTO: it is underinclusive and riddled with loopholes and ambiguities. These issues are easily resolved by a more inclusive, detailed drafting of the GTO that eliminates the many loopholes and clarifies the latent ambiguities inherent in it. However, as currently written, the GTO’s many issues prevent it from effectively fighting money laundering in Miami, but they also shelter Miami’s real estate market from the potential negative effects that many feared the GTO would cause

Effects of threat and motivation on classical musicians’ professional performance practice during the Covid-19 pandemic

In the past 2 years our world has experienced huge disruptions because of COVID-19. The performing arts has not been insulated from these tumultuous events with the entire music industry being thrown into a state of instability due to the paralyzing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined how classical professional musicians’ ability to cope with uncertainty, economic struggles, and work-life interplay during COVID-19 was influenced by various factors that affect a crucial part of the development and sustainment of music careers: musicians’ practice. We analyzed responses to an online survey of 309 classical performing musicians from 41 countries in Europe and Latin America across three pandemic stages: immediately before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and when vaccines were being made available and lockdowns were being reduced or lifted. Structural equation modeling indicates relationships between perceptions of threat at the peak of the pandemic and the musicians Self- or External-Based Motivation for the three periods in which respondents were asked to reflect. Findings suggest that musicians who are more internally self-motivated seemed to be more resilient to the pandemic threats and more capable of managing their practicing routines, whereas more externally motivated musicians experienced a reduction in their dedicated time to practice during lockdown. We suggest pedagogical and policy implications, as well as future lines of research that are oriented toward supporting professional musicians in assessing and understanding their motivational drives so that they can cope with situations that disrupt their professional lives

Can motivation and intentions of parental support predict musical achievement before the commencement of musical studies at the elementary school level?

Admission procedures to elementary school in Music Conservatoires in Portugal consist in the assessment of aural aptitude. This investigation aims at assessing the power of aural aptitude at predicting future musical achievement as well as the assessment of two other variables for the same purpose: motivation and intentions of parental support. For that matter, our sample includes the cohort of the admitted candidates and their parents to the 2019 to 2020 academic year. We used a longitudinal approach that followed the musical achievement of the sample during the 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 academic years. Questionnaires were administered to both children and parents to collect information on motivation to learn a musical instrument and anticipation of parental support provision. Our results point that, after 2 years of music education, neither of the tested variables were able to predict the students’ musical achievement. These results suggest that the model of admission procedures to Music Conservatoires based on aural aptitude must be rethought and that this line of investigation could be revisited later when our sample enters middle school to assess again the predicting power of motivation and parental support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Caring approaches to young, gifted music learners' education: a PRISMA scoping review

This study reviews empirical research literature that deals with existing caring approaches to nurture and educate gifted children in music. The focus on the ethics of care stems from the need to expand notions of talent development in music from a purely behaviorist focus often associated with traumatic experiences, toward a perspective that addresses socio-emotional and cultural aspects of human development across the lifespan. We employed the Preferred Reporting Systems for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews method to review literature concerning caring approaches to the upbringing and education of children gifted for music. A total of 652 records dating from the 1930s and searched via both digital databases and manually in 41 relevant journals were retrieved from which 506 were examined using our inclusion criteria. A detailed analysis process allowed the authors to include 14 studies that were organized according to sampling location, methodologies, quality appraisal, and criteria-related topics. Eleven of the studies were qualitative with a majority of these employing semi-structured interviews for data collection, while the remaining meta strategy and quantitative studies typically employed questionnaires. Salient topics covered by the selected studies included: addressing inequalities in opportunity to access gifted programs; identifying socio-emotional needs of gifted (and twice-exceptional) students; offering a nurturing environment; focusing on intrinsic motivation; developing coping strategies for overall wellbeing; and cultivating healthy attitudes toward competitions through a spirit of peer collaboration and humility. These aspects were clustered into Francoy Gagné's Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent regarding natural abilities, environmental, intrapersonal, and developmental catalysts that are involved in nurturing talents in gifted children. Results suggest that the existing research on caring approaches to musically gifted children's learning and development are scarce and that current knowledge is based mostly on single one-off studies rather than systematic research, and on studies that examine a selection of aspects but not adopting a larger-scale theoretical framework. This review highlights the need for more systematic, multidisciplinary, and empirically robust studies on caring approaches to musically gifted children's learning and development, and for policy developments in educational settings where acceleration programs are offered for young, gifted music learners

Music Self-Efficacy for Performance: An explanatory model based on Social Support

Personal perceptions of self-efficacy are particularly relevant in the field of music performance, which is oriented toward the outward expressions of one’s own ability through public performances. Within this context, a number of personal variables, including social support and performance anxiety, have been shown to be associated with musical success and are therefore relevant for research that seeks to understand the four sources of self-efficacy (mastery experiences, vicarious observation, verbal persuasion, physiological states) that are integral components of Bandura’s (2002) Social Learning Theory. Previous research, as well as observed differences among musicians associated with educational level (preuniversity) and gender (male/female), underpins the context of this study, which presents evidence regarding the factors that are capable of mediating perceptions of self-efficacy for musical performance. Specifically, the main objectives of this study were to more clearly understand relations between social support, public performance, musical performance anxiety, and self-efficacy using structural equation modeling and to compare these results according to gender. A battery of questionnaires was submitted to 359 preuniversity Spanish music students. Results highlight the relevance of family support for self-efficacy in public performance: directly and mediated through musical performance anxiety. The role of teachers and peers appeared to be relevant only for boys and was mediated through performance anxiety. Public performances lead to a greater degree of musical self-efficacy, but only in girls. Further research shall be required in order to improve pedagogical methods and help teachers increasingly individualize their teaching

Opioid And Naloxone Prescribing Practices In Mississippi

The purpose of this study was to determine whether primary care providers (PCPs) in Mississippi are following the selected Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines published in March 2016 for prescribing opioids for chronic, non-cancer pain. The study also sought to determine if the selected providers prescribed naloxone for opioid overdose reversal. Drug overdoses have increased exponentially in the last 3 decades in the United States (Doyon, Aks, & Schaeffer, 2014) — leading to opioid overdose becoming the most frequent cause of accidental death. Opioid overdose death rates are so high the CDC declared it a problem of “epidemic” status in 2012 (Canada, DiRocco, & Day, 2014). Mississippi ranks as one of the highest prescribing states for opioid analgesics. For the purpose of this research, focus was placed on specific aspects o f the CDC guidelines as follows: (a) consider nonpharmacological treatment or treat with nonopioids first, (b) avoid prescribing opioids and benzodiazepines concurrently, and (c) check a urine drug screen prior to opioid initiation and yearly thereafter (CDC, 2016). The CDC now recommends prescribing naloxone, an opioid antagonist, to patients at risk for opioid overdose. Naloxone has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing opioid overdose mortality. A nonexperimental, quantitative, descriptive, retrospective review of charts was performed in 6 primary care clinics in Mississippi staffed by physicians and family nurse practitioners. A convenience sampling of 600 charts for retrospective chart review was conducted. Inclusion criteria were age 18 years or older, medically treated long-term with opioids (\u3e 2 prescriptions written \u3e21 days apart) for chronic non-cancer pain, and prescribed by a PCP. The findings suggested that PCPs in Mississippi are not eonsistently following CDC guidelines for opioid prescribing. It should also be noted that, of the 600 charts reviewed, none of the patients were prescribed naloxone for reversal of a potential opioid overdose. Research demonstrated a need for increased awareness and education among PCPs regarding CDC guidelines for prescribing opioids

A Simple Extrusion Method for the Synthesis of Aligned Silica Nanowires Using the Template of a Rigid Surface Mesophase

Long range alignment of silica nanowires has been accomplished by extrusion of a novel surfactant mesophase prior to silica synthesis