Self-Regulation of Facebook Usage and Academic Performance of Students in Kenyan Universities

The increasing connectivity of places to the internet platform has led to widespread use of the social media platforms in homes, workplaces and schools wherein it is preffered by mostly the young people christened as dot.com generation. The use of social media platforms has a potential effect on the productivity of the users either in their places of work, schools and society in general. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of self-regulation of Facebook usage on academic performance among university students in Kenya. To achieve this objective, the study employed the ex post facto research design. Purposive and stratified random sampling methods  were used to select partcipating campuses (n=4) from (N=12) and students (n=348) from (N=2698) third year regular students. Data was collected using a self administered questionnaire. The null hypothesis was tested at .01 level of significance using Kendall's tau_b correlation coefficient. The findings revealed that there was a moderate level of self regualtion on facebook usage by university students thus depicting ambivalence in attitude towards controlling the urge to use facebook when in site. Further, it was found that there was a significant relationship between the level of facebook self regulation and academic performance (p<.01). The implication of this finding was that the more one self regulates, the higher the likelihood of improving in academic performance. From the findings, it is recommended that universities incorporate time management skills in the curriculum in order to help the students achieve balance between leisure activites and academics. KEYWORDS: Facebook, Facebook usage, self-regulation, academic performance

Development of the Nickel-Refining Production at Norilsk Nickel Harjavalta Oy in GMK Norilsk Nickel

Abstract: As a result of the innovative solutions found due to the joint efforts of Russian and Finnish researchers, the recovery of nonferrous and precious metals in Norilsk Nickel Harjavalta was significantly increased (%): the recovery of Ni was increased to 98.7; that of Cu, to 99.5; Pt, to 99.6; and Pd to 99.6. Simultaneously, a copper cake (one of the main commercial products) of an improved composition, namely, (%) 57–62 Cu, <3 Ni, 8–11 Fe, was produced. The arsenic content in the copper cake was decreased from 1.5–2 to 0.15–0.3%. The largest projects are as follows: stage-by stage implementation of a matte-free technology with simultaneous modification of the matte line for processing converter matte; the development of a jarosite technology of iron deposition from a nickel solution, which decreased the irreversible losses of nonferrous and precious metals with a waste iron cake as much as possible (the losses of nickel and cobalt were decreased by 11 times; those of copper, by 23 times; platinum, by 16%; palladium, by 10%; rhodium, by 9%; gold, by 12%); and the building and introduction of carbonate processing, which allowed the production of nickel cathodes to be increased. As a result of the measures taken to redistribute raw materials, the mattes of slag-cleaning furnaces, which contained 35–40% Fe, were moved to KGMK. This integration solution led to a significant synergy effect in Nornickel. One of the key factors of the economic efficiency of the matte-free technology was a decrease in the specific consumption of the main reagents (oxygen, air, sulfuric acid) and the energy resources used for the manufacture of nickel products. As a result, the transaction costs were decreased by ~3.5 mln dollars per year. © 2019, Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

Pressure oxidation deposition of iron in the form of jarosites from the converter matte leaching solution at norilsk nickel harjavalta

Through joint effort, Russian and Finnish experts came up with a matte-free leaching process for converter matte processing, which involves precipitation of iron with the help of jarosite process. The new process was implemented at Norilsk Nickel Harjavalta Oy (NNH), and it helped optimize the 1st treatment stage during which iron, arsenic and selenium are removed from nickel-cobalt solution. Compared with the standard process scheme, the new process helped achieve a significant reduction in the amount of valuable components that get lost with the ferrous cake: nickel and cobalt — by 11 times (each); copper — by 23 times; platinum — by 16% (abs.); palladium — by 10% (abs.); rhodium — by 9% (abs.); gold — by 12% (abs.). The jarosite process conducted in a separate cycle benefited the quality of copper cake: thus, the concentration of copper rose from ~35–40 to 57–62%. Due to the new process schemes applied and the jarosite process implemented, the concentration of arsenic in the copper cake decreased from ~1.5–2.0 to 0.15–0.30%. The natrojarosite phase that formed during the 1st (autoclave) treatment stage (when iron is removed from the nickel-cobalt solution) benefited the oxidized slurry thickening and filtering performance. The jarosite solid phase is characterized with higher compactability and filterability. The authors established how the phase composition of the natrojarosite deposit tends to form depending on the process of pressure oxidation deposition of iron ions from sulphate solutions and its thermodynamics. The authors optimized the conditions (such as the composition of the solution, temperature and pressure) for coarse-crystalline natrojarosite to form, which enable reaching the required iron precipitation depth and raising the degree of co-deposition of arsenic and selenium. The authors came up with a mechanism for co-deposition of arsenic ions during an oxide-hydrolytic deposition of iron producing natrojarosite. The authors identified the conditions for and implemented a Fe-cake disposal technique based on the addition of dry neutralizer — i.e. limestone. In this case the sodium jarosite contained in the Fe-cake is not subject to decomposition and becomes stable enough for long-term storage in a wet state in the NNH test field. It is shown that to increase the production of cathode nickel by NNH additional solutions will have to be developed to achieve a reduced concentration of selenium in nickel catholytes, which can also be achieved through a greater depth of its co-deposition with iron hydroxides and its removal with dump ferrous cake. © 2019, "Ore and Metals" Publishing house. All rights reserved