Research Project on Music

Music Censorship is a very controversial issue that has been around over fifty years. In the world of music, the censorship effort repeats itself every generation. Society always tries to censor something or somebody to stop the world from evolving or changing. Since music is so popular and universal, it gets censored the most. Music censorship alters the creativity of music artists and does not abide by the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution. More specifically, it does not respect the freedom of speech.

Music is a free expression of the ideas, traditions, and emotions of individuals and of people. It may express musicians hopes and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, and their identity as a culture. Yet these expressions often conflict with those of people in power. Then there are those who are threatened by the very nature of a free exchange of ideas.

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Censorship is when a person, an organization, or a government decides that something is unfit or obscene, and keeps everyone else from reading, having, seeing, listening to, or buying it. Censorship of music can take various forms. For example, parental advisory sticker labels, banned concerts, banned cover art, rating systems, legislative bills and laws, and banned clothing are a few of the ways in which music and the artists that create the music can be censored.

Throughout history, many works of art and literature have been repeatedly censored. However, there seems to be an increased sensitivity when dealing with popular music. Music has always represented freedom to its fans and ever since the start of rock music in the 1950s, there have always been those ready to campaign against it. Calls for censorship have come with the emergence of almost every new form of communication: Television, radio, the internet, photography, telephones, and even the postal service. In fact, many other twentieth-century musical genres, like ragtime and jazz, have been met with resistance (Nuzum 5). When the saxophone was popularized in the 1920s, critics called it the "devil's flute" and thought that its low, seductive tones would cause young girls to behave immorally (Nuzum 5).

Music censorship has been taking place for a long time. In the 1950s, Ed Sullivan called Elvis, "unfit for a family audience" (Nuzum). Today, Elvis Presley is on a postage stamp. In the 1960s, a New York bishop forbade Catholic school students from dancing to "The Twist" because he considered R&B music and its associated dances, to be lewd and un-Christian. In the 1970s, Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman" was edited without his knowledge for a live appearance on American Bandstand (Nuzum). In the 1980s, a representative of the New York State division of substance abuse services suggested that a tax should be put on musicians whose songs promote drug use (Nuzum). In the 1990s, a Tennesse judge ruled that 2 Live Crew's "Nasty As They Wanna [sic.] Be" album and N.W.A's "Straight Outta [sic.] Compton" album were obscene under state law. He also stated that anyone arrested for selling the records could face fines from $10,000 to $100,000, depending upon the minors in the offense. The latest censorship incident was: Radion stations across the country removed songs by the Dixie Chicks from airplay because of a comment made by the group's singer saying she was embarassed that President Bush is from her home state of Texas (Nuzum).

In matters of censorship, do not believe that content is the sole reason a work of art is censored. Actually, content makes very little difference. Censorship is less about content and much more about communication and control. Censorship has less to do with defining appropiate expression than it does with defining appropiate people (Nuzum 6). There are those in control and those who question or threaten that control. Music offers a sense of empowerment against authority and authority feels a need to suppress and control it. In this paradigm, censorship cooks down to its basic ingredients: racism, classim, and elitism. Throughout history, censors have not really cared about Chuck Berry, Ozzy Osbourne, or 2 Live Crew. What they really have cared about is what these artists represent: change. The struggles associated with music censorship are battles between facts and opinions, between truth and assumptions.

Some supporters of music censorship are the American Family Association, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), and C. Delores Tucker. C. Delores Tucker and William Bennet have joined forces over the past couple of years to wage war on gangsta rap and heavy metal. In 1995, they went after Time Warner for the "marketing of evil" (Mass Mic). They went after Time Warner because Time Warner was shareholder in Interscope Records, which carries artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Snoop Doggy Dog (Mass Mic). The Parents Music Resource Center is the organizatione responsible for the warning sticker on CDs and cassettes today. Even Wal-mart had a policy of not carrying any CDs that carry the notorious parental warning label, a few years ago (Wal-mart Blues).

Music censorship takes place for numerous reasons. Music is an easy targer when legislators are looking for scapegoats. When certain events take place and things go wrong, the society find someone or something to point their finger at. For example, there were a couple of cases, in which murderers listened to certain rap artists and certain songs begore they committed the murders. As a result, legislators tried to censor these artists and their songs. The legislators were implying that the music was the cause of the murders and that certain music influences people to commit wrongful acts like murder, rape, and theft. After the Columbine High School incident , the media immediately turned to music for the blame. The two killers, Harris and Klebold, had been fans of "goth" culture, violent video games and movies, and the internet. In the weeks that followed the shootings, a seemingly never-ending parade of activists, politicians, parents, and special-interest groups called for the censorship of the music, movies, web sites, and games that some felt were the training grounds that turned two boys into ruthless killers. Industrial rock band KMFDM received heightened attention because the lyrics to its song "Son of A Gun" appeared on Harris's web site.

Album covers have also caused controversy. In the 1950s, photos of dancing teens or musicians were thought to promote hedonism, promiscuity, lewdness, and disdain for authority (Nuzum 69). For many years, racial prejudice kept record companies from showing interracial dancing on album covers. Album artwork for the British group, Led Zeppelin, caused a great deal of controversy. Although none of the artwork was particularly offensive, critics felt that the mysterious album art themes had to contain some kind of subversive message.

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This is a free research project on Music topic. Keep in mind that all free research project samples and research paper examples are taken from open sources – they are plagiarized and cannot be used as your own research project. If you need a qualitative custom research project on Music for college, university, Master's or PhD degree – you are welcome to contact professional research writing company to have your paper written online by academic research writers.
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Research Project on Nikola Tesla

While studying engineering, Tesla was shown an invention which could be connected to an electrical generator (a device which converts mechanical energy into electrical current) to act as a simple motor (rotational device which converts electrical current into mechanical energy to perform work). Tesla concluded that if the motor was powered by an alternating current rather than a direct current it would be much more efficient; however, he was told that it would be impossible to build this AC motor.

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On a random day, Tesla was hit with the idea for the ac motor suddenly and he drew it out in the sand. The AC induction motor used the principle of electromagnetic induction. The outer magnets of a simple motor could be replaced with two sets of stationary electromagnets, each supplied with alternating currents from sources 90 degrees out of phase. This phase difference would create a rotating magnetic field (a force surrounding a moving electric charge or magnetic pole in space) that the inner rotor would follow, and so the synchronous AC motor was devised.

In 1884, Tesla came to America and proposed his idea to Thomas Edison who was currently using the DC (direct current) motor. Edison struck down Tesla's idea. George Westinghouse took an interest in Tesla's work and offered to supply him with the capital necessary to develop the AC motor. In 1888 Tesla invented the AC motor. In 1896, Tesla's invention was proved to be superior to the DC motor for practical long distance electrical power distribution when the Niagara Falls were utilized to provide polyphase power to Buffalo, NY.

Advantages of the AC over the DC
- AC motors can operate without any moving electrical contacts and without first converting alternating current (delivered by the power company) to direct current.
- Mechanical commutators and the brushes that wear out and require continuous maintenance are eliminated.
- Produces electricity instead of using it.
- It can be transmitted over greater distances.
- It is safer because the current of the ac occasionally stops, while the dc current never stops making who ever was holding it unable to let go. The electricity that ran through the wire would be stronger than the electricity from the brain, so one would not be able to release it.
- Voltage can easily be lowered with transformers.

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This is a free research project on Nikola Tesla topic. Keep in mind that all free research project samples and research paper examples are taken from open sources – they are plagiarized and cannot be used as your own research project. If you need a qualitative custom research project on Nikola Tesla for college, university, Master's or PhD degree – you are welcome to contact professional research writing company to have your paper written online by academic research writers.
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Research Project on Africa

This week's readings discussed the physical and geographical makeup of Africa, as well as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its affects on Africa and its Diaspora. Africa and the Genesis of Humankind discussed how physical environments play a huge role in determining the way that human life would develop, as well as the geographical diversity of Africa that influences the diverse societies within the continent. Most importantly, it talks about the development of food production, or farming, and how that allowed human society to advance to complex stages. The next section focuses primarily on the internal "slavery" in Africa and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and their effects on Africa and the Diaspora.

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The physical environment of Africa consists of 12 million square miles, 5 major climatic regions and contains a wide variety of climates and vegetation. Thus, the development of society largely depends on how the inhabitants adapt to or change their physical environment. For example, the rainfall in Africa in general is excessive in the central regions, and is excessive and concentrated in certain seasons of the year. As a result, farming is hard to do when the soil was depleted of its resources. So, the people created a way of adapting to the physical conditions by slash and burn cultivation where there would be long processes of replenishing the soil over a period of years by burning vegetation, which helped provide nutrients to the soil. It is also important to know that Africa was a mineral storehouse. These minerals, especially iron, served as crucial elements in the development of urbanization and state formation. The pace of human cultural development speeds up with the beginning of food production, which begins in the Nile Valley about 7000 years ago. This allowed humans to have control over the environment as well as increase in population. Prior to farming, many people survived off of hunting and gathering which sustained certain levels of population and social organization.

The initial African-European contact was a result of the European desire to control the African gold trade, and it soon grew to incorporate other factors. "It is unfortunate that the contact between Africans and Europeans ended with the forced transportation of Africans as slaves to the New World." Although, Africa had its own internal slavery, it was not in the least as detrimental as the Atlantic trade. The internal slavery was primarily used for domesticating and working the mines of the Gold Coast. Paul Lovejoy notes that "the ideas that slave in African societies were absolute property or chattel of their owners, or that they were denied their sexual rights, was the norm within the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade". The trade has been estimated as forcing 10-50 million persons from the African continent to work on the fertile plantations of the New World that Christopher Columbus had stumbled over in 1492. During this trade there were many lives lost in the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean over to the Americas. As a result of the trade, Africa was deployed of most of its young women and men and its population of 100 million stayed that way for three centuries, while its counterparts, Asia and Europe, tripled its population over that time period. It also devastated the economic system, as well as the families of those enslaved.

"The humiliation suffered under slavery and the cultural deprivation have left legacies of scars that have yet to be removed both in Africa and the vast Diaspora." With the European exploitation of Africa, it is hard to imagine how African people have survived. I think since the beginning of time Africans have always found ways to adapt to their situations, whether it was creating food production or surviving the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, we are a people that have overcome many obstacles.

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This is a free research project on Africa topic. Keep in mind that all free research project samples and research paper examples are taken from open sources – they are plagiarized and cannot be used as your own research project. If you need a qualitative custom research project on Africa for college, university, Master's or PhD degree – you are welcome to contact professional research writing company to have your paper written online by academic research writers.
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Research Project on Magic

Translated into over thirty languages and sold more than 114 million times world-wide, the four Harry Potter books still occupy the places 7, 11, 15 and 19 on the New York Times best-seller list. On its publication day, the fourth volume broke all past records, when a famous Londoner book shop sold over one hundred copies per hour. This essay will focus on Joanne K. Rowling's way of narration which seems to fascinate so many readers. First, this is done by considering some of the narrative elements, i.e. the frame story and the presentation of the characters. Then, three critical arguments shall be indicated and, finally the pattern of narration will be discussed, in order to explain the success of these books.

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One fascinating element of Rowling's work is the frame story, the world which the author created as scene for Harry's adventures. Its strong point is its plausibility which is based on a convincing relation to reality. Scene of action is Hogwarts, the hidden castle with its towers and secret chambers, its 142 moving stairs, and populated by fabulous creatures. The most important sport in the magic world is Quidditch, an exciting mixture of polo, basketball, and cricket. The daily routine at school is determined by a carefully devised and realistic system of rules and rituals. Hogwarts, although it is an imaginary world, is unmistakably close to reality , it is an image of reality which has been equipped with magic. To the reader, many things appear as in real life. It is this mixture of fairy-tale and real life, which makes it so convincing.

The same relation to reality can also be seen in Rowling's gift to describe the characters, which is a further quality of the books. The characters are understandable and allow the reader to identify with. The promotion of identification is made up of the archetypal description of the characters. They all are well-known from day-to-day life, ambitious Hermione for example, or disgusting Malfoy. The faculty is also divided into good and evil. There is strict but fair Miss McGonagall, the braggart Gilderoy Lockhart, nasty Professor Snape and whatever their names are. Still, they are not named by coincidence. Rowling masterfully uses the tradition of the telling names coming from Anglo-Saxon folk tales. Voldemort is strongly suggestive of death, Muggle comes from mug, Argus Filch, the caretaker, watches everything like a hawk. The author knows how to give her figures precisely described characteristics that the reader can imagine and identify with.

Although the passages quoted above could, by mistake, have given the reader the impression Harry Potter evades all forms of criticism, it has to be mentioned that also J. K. Rowling's work is criticized in various ways. This criticism shall not be discussed in this essay, yet, it is mentioned in order to give a complete impression. In the Internet one discovers mainly three general critical arguments. They stretch from the accusation that the books contain racist elements, over the reproach of glorification of occultism up to the reference that the author uses a constantly repeating narrative pattern making the story tedious. It does not belong to this essay to examine this criticism further, since this has been done before by others. Yet, it has to be considered that there is criticism of which has to be taken note.

However, the third point of criticism mentioned above leads to a closing and more comprehensive view of Rowling's way of narration, which subsequently is shown briefly. Considering the sequence of events, one notices that Rowling puts the action in a general narrative pattern which recurs as the same in each volume. Still, despite this constant repetition, the author succeeds to stay captivating describing the fight, in which the good must defeat the bad again and again. Rowling writes in an exciting way, letting happen the unexpected at an unexpected moment. For example, Wormtail, the Dark Lord's nasty sidekick, hides already in Harry's first two school years at Hogwarts, before he emerges in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Rowling's fascinating way of narration and her talent not to become boring in this repeated pattern brings the reader to attend this fight over and over again.

Therefore, J. K. Rowling's gift of narration might be one principal reason, why so many readers all over the world are enthralled by the books of Harry Potter and why those are such a great success. In a skilful mixture of thriller, horror story and fairy tale, narrated clearly and distinctly, Harry's adventures at Hogwarts have been fantasized so consequently and detailed that they get close to reality. Because of this relation to real life and thanks to the author's refreshing way of telling stories, the reader stays no longer a spectator outside the story but literally seems to dive into it.

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This is a free research project on Magic topic. Keep in mind that all free research project samples and research paper examples are taken from open sources – they are plagiarized and cannot be used as your own research project. If you need a qualitative custom research project on Magic for college, university, Master's or PhD degree – you are welcome to contact professional research writing company to have your paper written online by academic research writers.
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Research Project on Landforms

Describe the landforms produced by glacier ice and meltwater and explain how these landforms reflect variations in glacier energy.

Glaciers and ice sheets are seen as powerful agents of erosion than can radically alter landscapes and carve distinctive landforms. Distinctive landforms can also be formed by the process of meltwater.

To enable these unique landforms to be formed, many factors have to be taken into consideration so we can understand how these landforms were made. The most important processes are that of erosion and how the landscape can effect glacier energy. The main processes of erosion are Quarrying (plucking) and Abrasion.

Quarrying is where ice at the base of a glacier or ice cap is melted by friction and pressure, and this often refreezes in cracks in the rock that it comes into contact with. Freeze thaw weathering weakens the rock, and fragments of it are plucked out by the ice that flows over it. This is the process of quarrying.

Abrasion is where frozen that contains fragments of rock (Often as a result of quarrying) can be very effective at grinding the surface it moves over, particulary under great pressure from the weight of ice above. This grinding process has two main consequences-rough surfaces can be polished quite smooth, and smooth surfaces can be sratched by abrasion to create striations aligned in the direction of ice movement. Striations are very useful in reconsructing directions of ice movements in the past.

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Three of the unique landforms produced by Glaciers are Cirques, Aretes and-shaped valleys. Cirques are bowl "shaped depressions caused by quarring processes at the head of valleys in which glaciers form. As the ice moves down a valley it is the process of abrasion on the rock floor and quarrying that form the cirque (See figure 1). A typical cirque is semi-circular in shape when viewed from above, with a steep headwall and side walls, and a much flatter floor ( Chris Park "The environment" ). Many of the cirques have been deepened by other processes of erosion, and after the ice inside the cirque has melted they usually leave lakes called tarns. When Cirques are being formed and ice is present in them, a wide deep gap often develops between the ice and the headwall, called a bergshrund, as the ice is pulled away from the headwall and moves downslope.

Aretes are formed where a glacier erodes adjacent cirques on opposite sides of a moutain ridge. The knife edged ridge between the two cirques is called an arrete. For example Striding edge in the Lake district.

U-shaped valleys are usually formed by erosional processes taking place in a bpr-exixting V-shaped valley more than likely formed by a pre-glacial river. They are usually straight or gently meandering. These valleys are formed as a glacier extends and advances down-valley. U-shaped valleys are often excavated quite deep, ao that the mouths of tribtary valleys are left hanging high above the new valley as hanging valleys.

Even though Cirques, Aretes and U-shaped valleys are the most charachteristic landforms created by glaciers, there are many other landforms created. Two nother widespread forms created by glaciers are Roches Moutonnees and Crag-and-tails.

Roches Moutonnees, are formed where glacier ice has moved down a valley and have created outcrops of bare, resistant rock. The upstream side ( called the stoss), shaped by abrasion, is usually smoothed, rounded and steamlined. The down stream side ( the lee) is usually steep and angular because it is formed by quarrying processes.

A Crag-and-tail can also be formed around resistant rock underneath moving ice. Quarrying gives a rocky, angular appearance to the upsteam side ( the crag), while the downsteam side ( the tail) has a gentlee direction of ice movement and is covered by glacial deposits.

The five Landforms just mentioned were all created by the power within the glacier. The following landforms were all created by the deposition left by the glacier. Much of the sediment carried by the glacier is from the process of quarrying itself, this sediment is then deposited in different ways to form different land forms.

Sediment that is deposited directly by a Glacier or ice sheet is called Till. Till is usually composed of a mixture of rocks, sand and clay but this varies from are to area.

Usually in till sheets we find depressions called Kettle Hoples, these form where blocfks of ice buried in the till melt and the underlying material slumps down to nform a hollow after the glacier or ice sheet has retreated.

Drumlins are created by the deposition of material (till) beneath a Glacier. They can be up to several kilometers long and they are allingned more or less parallel to one another, the upstream(stoss) slope is sometimes much steeper than the downstream (lee) slope. If there are a group of Drumlins they are often known as "a basket of eggs".

Moraines are deposits of glacial till in the form of hammocky hills or hill-like features. There are various types of morraine, which aree deposited at different parts of the glacier:

- Lateral morraines: These are deposited at the side of a valley Glacier.

- Ground morraines: This is Till.

- Medial morraines: These form in the centre of a glacier downstream from the confluence of neighbouring valleys as adjacent lateral moraines join together.

- Terminal morraines: These are deposited at the end of the lower end of a melting glacier and are composed of sediments that have been carried in, on and under the ice as it advanced. As a valley glaciers retreats then halts, often a number of times in succession. Each halt can be marked by a terminal morraine across the valley, so these are valuable in reconstructing the glacial history of an area.

Altough many of the landforms which are created in glaciated environments are formed by the movement of ice, meltwater also has an important role in reshaping the land scape. As the meltwater flows from glacier margins towards the sea, the water shapes the land, carving out gorges and depositing broad spreads of gravel, sand and silt. Meltwater can be formed by the friction on the bedrock beneath the Glacier. The meltwater transports sediment downsteam, and its deposits are called Fluvioglacial deposits.

Eskers and Kames are two particulary distinctinctive fluvioglacial features. Eskers are long, narrow, sinous ridges formed from fluvioglacial sediments deposited by meltwater streams flowing in or beneath a glacier or ice sheet. Kames are similar in respect that they are long ridges of fluvioglacial sediments, but the flow of water is now over the surface of the glacier. The deposit remains along the valley side after the glacier ice has melted, from this we can estimate the relative height of the ice margin.

When a large valley glacier or ice cap melts, particularly if this happens quickly e.g rapid climate change, it can produce large amounts of meltwater. This high level of meltwater can cause extensive erosion on the landscape, for example erosion on glacial walls.

The landforms produced can have an effect on glacier energy. The relief of the landscape is vey important, the movement of ice is effected by gravity, so in theory the steeper the slope the more energy a ice sheet will have. However there are other factors which have to be taken into consideration, the first being the type of material/rock. If the Glacier is traveling through a hard rock, there is going to be more resistance slowing the energy of the glacier.

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This is a free research project on Landforms topic. Keep in mind that all free research project samples and research paper examples are taken from open sources – they are plagiarized and cannot be used as your own research project. If you need a qualitative custom research project on Landforms for college, university, Master's or PhD degree – you are welcome to contact professional research writing company to have your paper written online by academic research writers.
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