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This article reviews and contrasts two approaches that water security researchers employ to advance understanding of the complexity of water-society policy challenges. A prevailing reductionist approach seeks to represent uncertainty through calculable risk, links national GDP tightly to hydro-climatological causes, and underplays diversity and politics in society. When adopted uncritically, this approach limits policy-makers to interventions that may reproduce inequalities, and that are too rigid to deal with future changes in society and climate. A second, more integrative, approach is found to address a range of uncertainties, explicitly recognise diversity in society and the environment, incorporate water resources that are less-easily controlled, and consider adaptive approaches to move beyond conventional supply-side prescriptions. The resultant policy recommendations are diverse, inclusive, and more likely to reach the marginalised in society, though they often encounter policy-uptake obstacles. The article concludes by defining a route towards more effective water security research and policy, which stresses analysis that matches the state of knowledge possessed, an expanded research agenda, and explicitly addresses inequities.

Data on the radiobiological effects of thermal neutrons are usually obtained from irradiations in a mixed field of neutrons of different energies and gamma rays or from conversion of proton data with similar energies to those created in the neutron capture on nitrogen. Experimental data from irradiations in a pure thermal or cold neutron beam can help to find new values for neutron relative biological effectiveness (RBE) factors, which are useful for BNCT (Boron Neutron Capture Therapy) and radiation protection applications. We present a new experimental setup for radiobiological studies at a cold neutron beam at Institut Laue-Langevin, a beam without fast neutron component and almost no gamma ray contribution. After the irradiation, survival assays are performed to obtain the survival curves. Finally, comparing with a reference photon irradiation, the thermal neutron RBE factors can be calculated. The methodology is outlined at the example of A375 melanoma cells for which new radiobiological data were obtained. ; Institut Laue-Langevin, Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France. Departamento de Física Atómica Molecular y Nuclear, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain. Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular III e Inmunología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain. ; We acknowledge financial support for this work from the Fundación Científica de la Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer (AECC) under grant PS16163811PORR, Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Regional Government), under contract P11-FQM-8229, Spanish MINECO and FEDER funds under contract FIS2015-69941-C2-1-P, and the founders of the University of Granada Chair Neutrons for Medicine: Spanish Fundación ACS and Capitán Antonio. M.P. acknowledges a grant under the program Becas de Iniciación a la Investigación from the Universidad de Granada (Plan Propio de Investigación).