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The total number of publications and/or the share of total publications in a given quartile, usually first quartile (Q1), is increasingly used in performance-based funding of public research. However, the quality significance of publishing in Q1 journals is very different depending on the research areas. Both the expected probability to publish in Q1 journals, given by the number of papers published in each quartile, as well as the average citations received by Q1 publications compared to other quartiles, is largely dependent on the research area. This study analyzes the share of articles published in each quartile in the 25 largest research areas indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded (Web of Science) and their main citation characteristics aiming to enrich the discussion about journal-based evaluation systems and specifically the number and/or the share of publications in Q1. It was found that the average share of documents published in Q1 was 45.7% (38.4% for articles and reviews), varying from 25.4 to 85.6% (from 17.1 to 88.9% for articles and reviews) depending on the area. Q1 publications were cited, on average, 2.07 times more than Q2 publications (2.41 times for articles plus reviews), however, depending on the area, this ratio varied from 0.9 to 6.1 (from 1.7 to 5.4 times for articles plus reviews). Q1 (total publications or articles plus reviews), received, on average, 65% of total citations of the research area, but again this value varied from 46 to 98% depending on the area.

The reuse of deinking paper mill effluent based on reverse osmosis is limited by silica scaling on the membranes. The removal of silica during softening processes is one of the most used approaches as it can treat large volumes of water at low cost, but when the water hardness is low, the addition of magnesium compounds is necessary. In the present investigation, MgCl2·6H2O was selected as magnesium source to analyze the effect of pH, dosage, temperature, and contact time on silica removal. Moreover, the silica removal mechanism was analyzed under different operational conditions. The results show that it is possible to obtain high silica removal rates (>70%) at an intermediate dosage (750 mg/L of MgCl2·6H2O) either at high pH (12.0) and ambient temperature (20 °C) or lower pHs, i.e., pH = 10.5, but at higher temperatures 35-50 °C. The kinetic study demonstrates that contact times lower than 30 min are enough for silica removal with independence of the temperature. SEM-energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of the solids obtained confirms that silica is removed through the formation of magnesium silicates. The EDX analysis showed that, independently of the operational conditions, the atomic Si/Mg ratio was around 0.7 which indicates that antigorite (Mg3Si2O5(OH)4) is the predominant specie formed.

Motivation is important for learning and cognition. Although dopaminergic (D2) transmission in the ventral striatum (VS) is associated with motivation, learning, and cognition are more strongly associated with function of the dorsal striatum, including activation in the caudate nucleus. A recent study found an interaction between intrinsic motivation and the DRD2/ANKK1 polymorphism (rs1800497), suggesting that A-carriers of rs1800497 are significantly more sensitive to motivation in order to improve during working memory (WM) training. Using data from the two large-scale imaging genetic data sets, IMAGEN (n=1080, age 13–15 years) and BrainChild (n∼300, age 6–27), we investigated whether rs1800497 is associated with WM. In the IMAGEN data set, we tested whether VS/caudate activation during reward anticipation was associated with WM performance and whether rs1800497 and VS/caudate activation interact to affect WM performance. We found that rs1800497 was associated with WM performance in IMAGEN and BrainChild. Higher VS and caudate activation during reward processing were significantly associated with higher WM performance (p