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Ocean science is central in providing evidence for the implementation of the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention. The Convention’s provisions on transfer of marine technology to developing countries aim at strengthening scientific capabilities to promote equitable opportunities for these countries to exercise rights and obligations in managing the marine environment. Decades after the adoption of the Convention, these provisions are under implemented, despite the efforts of international organizations, such as IOC-UNESCO. Latin America and the Caribbean struggle to conduct marine scientific research and seize the opportunities of blue economy due to the limited access to state-of-the-art technology. Ocean science communities in these countries are subject to constraints not foreseeing in international treaties, such as unstable exchange rates, taxation, fees for transportation, costs of maintenance and calibration of technology, challenges to comply with technical standards, and intellectual property rights. Action is needed to overcome these challenges by promoting a closer tie between science and diplomacy. We discuss that this interplay between science and international relations, as we frame science diplomacy, can inform on how to progress in allowing countries in this region to develop relevant research and implement the Convention. We provide concrete examples of this transfer of marine technology and ways forward, in particular in the context of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030).

The main purpose of this macro-study is to shed light on the broad impact of books. For this purpose, the impact of a very large collection of books (more than 200,000) has been analyzed by using PlumX, an analytical tool providing a great number of different metrics provided by various tools. Furthermore, the study also describes the changes in the values of the most significant measures and indicators over time. The results show that the usage counts in comparison to the other metrics are quantitatively predominant. Catalog holdings and reviews represent a book’s most characteristic measures deriving from its increased level of impact in relation to prior results. Our results also corroborate the long half-life of books within the scope of all metrics, excluding views and social media. Despite some disadvantages, PlumX has proved to be a very helpful and promising tool for assessing the broad impact of books, especially because of how easy it is to enter the ISBN directly as well as its algorithm to aggregate all the data generated by the different ISBN variations., Torres-Salinas, D.; Gumpenberger, C.; Gorraiz, J. PlumX As a Potential Tool to Assess the Macroscopic Multidimensional Impact of Books, 2: 5 (2017). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/47114], {"references":["Daniel Torres-Salinas, Christian Gumpenberger, & Juan Gorraiz. (2017). Multidimensional impact assessment of a large collection of books using PlumX: methodology, technical limitations and indicators analysis [Complementary material to manuscript]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1042414"]}