Intellectual Leadership of Leonardo da Vinci: A Bibliometric Study

The article evaluates the body of literature on Leonardo da Vinci using for the first time bibliometric and altmetric methods for data processing. The question of whether the literature on Leonardo da Vinci reflects his interdisciplinarity as scientist and artist is addressed. We argue that the medical and material sciences show a high number of citations to the respective publications, and much higher number of citations to publications ratio than the humanities and social sciences fields. We also found that there is no relationship between the number of publications for each research area and the citations (between productivity and quality). The largest category of papers, in terms of citations and in terms of the number of subfields, discussing da Vinci’s contribution to the various sciences, belongs to exact sciences. This finding is surprising as Leonardo da Vinci has become a synonym for the mysterious artist whose paintings consist of many messages that are difficult to explain. Therefore it seems natural that Leonardo the artist would get a lot of research attention. Nevertheless, the bibliometric findings show that the academic community has interest in his contributions to science, no less than in his work of art.     

Small states in multilateral negotiations. What have we learned?

There are many small states in the international system, which have considerably fewer capacities than their bigger counterpart. The study of multilateral negotiations in the European Union (EU), conferences taking place under the umbrella of the United Nations (UN), negotiations on the set up of an International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as the compliance bargaining in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) reveals that small states can sometimes be very influential—despite their size. Small states tend to be most likely to punch above their weight if the negotiations take place in an institutionalised arena with majority-based decision-making rules in which each state has one vote or in contexts in which decisions are made unanimously, if they are selective in negotiations and concentrate their capacities on the most important issues, engage in capacity-building activities to maximise their ideational resources, if they make use of institutional opportunity structures such as chairing meetings and engaging in agenda-setting, and if they individually or collectively apply persuasion strategies from early on.     

Analysis and discrimination of electrical tapes: part II. Backings

The backings of 90 black electrical tapes were analyzed to evaluate the chemical components of these films, the ability of individual techniques to discriminate samples, and the ability of the techniques combined to distinguish samples. The techniques utilized and their respective discrimination results were stereomicroscopy and physical measurements, to include observation of surface features of the backing, width, and thickness measurements (c. 64%); Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) using a microscope accessory (c. 83%); pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS; c. 81%); and scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS; c. 87%). Ninety-four percent of the backings were discriminated through this combination of analytical methods. Finally, evaluating these results in conjunction with previously published data on the analysis of the adhesives from the same set of electrical tapes provided an overall discrimination of nearly 96%.     

Tactical Balancing: High Court Decision Making on Politically Crucial Cases

This article advances a new account of judicial behavior: the thesis of tactical balancing. Building on existing models of judicial decision making, the thesis posits that high court justices balance a discrete set of considerations—justices' ideologies, their institutional interests, the potential consequences of their rulings, public opinion, elected leaders' preferences, and law—as they decide important cases. Variation in a high court's balancing of those considerations as it decides different cases leads it to alternate between challenging and endorsing the exercise of government power. The way in which high courts carry out this “tactical balancing” reflects their broader strategy for prioritizing the different roles they can play in a polity, and thus has significant implications for the rule of law and regime stability in developing democracies. The thesis is illustrated through a detailed analysis of the Brazilian high court's rulings on cases concerning crucial economic policies (1985–2004).     

Testing a measure of organizational learning capacity and readiness for transformational change in human services

Transformative organizational change requires organizational learning capacity, which we define in terms of (1) internal and (2) external organizational systems alignment, and promoting a culture of learning, including (3) an emphasis on exploration and information, (4) open communication, (5) staff empowerment, and (6) support for professional development. We shortened and adapted Watkins and Marsick's Dimensions of Learning Organizations Questionnaire into a new 16-item Organizational Learning Capacity Scale (OLCS) geared more toward nonprofit organizations. The OLCS and its subscales measuring each of the above 6 dimensions are unusually reliable for their brevity. ANOVAs for the OLCS and subscales clearly and consistently confirmed extensive participant observations and other qualitative data from four nonprofit human service organizations and one local human service funding organization.