What do public interactive information displays, vending machines and pedestrian crossings have in common? They are just a few of the ubiquitous yet essential public infrastructures that rely on buttons or touchscreens; common interactions that, until recently, were considered perfectly safe to perform. The Covid-19 pandemic, however, has created unprecedented opportunities for technologies that minimise interaction with shared devices. While recent advances in sensor technology and artificial intelligence have enabled consumer products that can respond to other modalities such as speech, gestures and faces, the underlying interaction paradigms have not been widely studied in public-facing settings (as opposed to specialised contexts such as operating theatres or with personal technologies in public). As a result, we do not know how usable, accessible, inclusive or effective these potential solutions are. The project will begin by surveying the landscape of touch interactions in public services to learn through observation how they are being adapted or avoided. Drawing on these insights, we will develop and integrate a suite of touchless technologies into exemplar public-facing services in a test-bed city, facilitated by our partner, Swansea Council. These flexible longitudinal deployments will allow us to study usage in-situ to determine the most appropriate, robust and cost-effective ways of facilitating safe, touchless interfaces for the Covid-19 era (and any subsequent outbreaks). The result of this work will be a public-facing touchless interaction design methodology and open-source toolkit of blueprints and techniques that can be integrated into existing infrastructures and used to inform the design of future installations.

This project brings together multiple perspectives on medieval Swansea, connecting those recovered from medieval witnesses (both textual and material) with new insights into the historic town for local communities and visitors to Swansea today. Our research will make new primary resources accessible for researchers and wider audiences, drawing on these materials to explore the topography of Swansea in the Middle Ages and the multiple cultural communities and identities which navigated the medieval town. The unique potential of Swansea as a case study is based on the manuscript source available in the Vatican Library (Vat. Lat. 4015), which brings together eye-witness accounts of the hanging of 'William Cragh' in ?1289, representing diverse cultural, social, gendered and ethnic perspectives within the city. Focusing on questions of perception and perspective within the urban landscape, and drawing on comparative analysis and interpretation, the project will also extend our understanding of place and identity in the Middle Ages more widely. The research will involve teams in the English Department, Swansea University (SU), the School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast (QUB), and the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London (DDH). The project is also founded on partnerships with the City and County of Swansea (CCS) and the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust (GGAT), which underpin both our research and our commitment to wider engagement. The High Street area of Swansea is currently targeted for regeneration and CCS aspires to create a specific identity for this part of the city as the 'Castle Quarter', promoting it as a focal point for tourism. This research will help re-situate the Castle within the medieval town, and re-invigorate medieval Swansea as a heritage asset and visitor destination. The digital map of medieval Swansea will be created at QUB in a GIS, using methods of retrogressive plan analysis and data gathered from archaeological and historical sources. The primary outcome will be the interactive digital map of Swansea c.1100-1400 (as well as a smaller conjectural plan of the two medieval castles), containing cartographic and morphological data. The map will be linked with an online edition and translation of the accounts of the hanging of 'William Cragh' by William de Breos, lord of Gower, in ?1289 (MS Vat. Lat. 4015). Whilst this medieval text has been examined previously by historians (notably Robert Bartlett in his micro-history 'The Hanged Man', 2004), its remarkable potential to extend our understanding of the medieval town has not been exploited. The eyewitnesses describe a range of locations (castle, dungeon, marketplace, gallows, burgess's house) and reflect a range of different social and cultural perspectives (Anglo-Norman and Welsh; lay and religious; male and female; lord, burgess and outlaw). Each narrative represents the urban space in different ways, offering diverse vantage-points (literal as well as metaphorical) on the medieval city. The project website will be developed by DDH and will enable users to engage simultaneously with both text and map, to use Google Maps to layer the medieval town over the modern city, and to download multi-media elements for PCs and mobile devices. New 3D visualisation technologies will simulate the perspectives which are represented in the witness statements. This research extends the model established in the team's successful AHRC-funded 'Mapping Medieval Chester' project. It enables medieval Swansea to be examined in a comparative perspective, and the innovative digital techniques developed for that project to be enhanced. This project will engage with diverse audiences, through online resources and interpretation materials produced with the non-HEI partners. The pavement marker series will use our research to create a visible, permanent presence for medieval Swansea in today's city.

The City of Swansea and the Swansea Valley is defined by its industrial past, and especially by the rise and decline of the copper industry which became the world's first globally integrated heavy industry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As Swansea became 'Copperopolis', and the Valley became as important as Coalbrookdale to Britain's Industrial Revolution, the lives of local people and in-coming migrants were profoundly shaped by the development of the workers' communities that supported the rapid growth of the coal and metallurgical industries. Equally, the lives of later generations were shaped first by the painful process of de-industrialisation which ensured that by 1950 the Swansea Valley had become the largest industrial wasteland in Europe; and then by large-scale land reclamation and regeneration projects implemented during the 1960s and 1970s. As a result of these long-run processes, the region has a remarkably rich yet complex industrial-urban-environmental heritage, and research into this informs a better understanding of how the unique historical and cultural context of the region continues to shape the identity, sense of place, and quality of life of the people who live in an area, where 16.8 percent of the population speaks Welsh. This multi-partner, bi-lingual project aims to consolidate and extend collaborations that have been established in recent years by arts and humanities researchers at Swansea University and a range of community groups and organisations across the university's regional hinterland. The project has two major objectives: 1. It seeks to develop collaborative community research projects that will be of great worth in themselves, and 2. It will very considerably enhance a major heritage-led urban regeneration project centred on the Swansea Valley, which brings significant added value. In order to achieve these objectives the research group will work closely with Swansea University's archives, media services, and Arts Centre, as well four external partners, to engage with formal and informal community groups across the region. The external partners are: - National Waterfornt Museum, Swansea; - West Glamorgan Archives Service; - The Libraries Service of City and County of Swansea; - Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust. A number of different groups will derive benefit from the project. First and foremost, the community groups and organisations engaged by the Research Group and Project Partners will benefit from the research because they will be generating outputs themselves and then disseminating them via different media. This process with greatly enhance the knowledge and skills of community groups across the region. The eventual dissemination of community group research findings will benefit the wider public in Swansea and south-west Wales by enhancing understanding of collective and individual histories. This turn will inform a better understanding of the region's heritage and identity, as well as its sense of place within local, national, and global contexts. The project partners will benefit from this collaborative project because through creative engagement with both HEI and non-HEI researchers. The project will serve to widen access to the partners' resources and will help to facilitate the increased use of their facilities, knowledge, and skills. Postgraduate students involved in the project (through open days, etc) and also community group members (again involved via open days, etc) will directly benefit from the project because it will give them real-world experiences of collaborative projects and enable both groups to identify, develop and also learn new transferable skills, for example - self-awareness, initiative, teamwork, action planning, leadership, communication, networking, problem solving, flexibility, etc. These transferable skills will be essential for students in their future careers.

This multi-partner, bi-lingual community heritage project is focused on the history of industrial and post industrial communities in the Swansea Valley. The region has a remarkably rich yet complex industrial-urban-environmental heritage, and research into this informs a better understanding of how its unique historical and cultural context continues to shape the identity, sense of place, and quality of life of the people who live in an area, where 16.8 percent of the population speaks Welsh. This second phase of the project aims to consolidate and extend collaborations between arts and humanities researchers at Swansea University and a wide range of community groups. Phase one saw the co-development of a number of Research in Community Heritage Projects, and seven of these have received funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund's 'All our Stories' Programme. As a result, in Phase Two we wish to support these projects through the stages of research production and delivery. By doing this the research group aims to enhance the projects, maximise the impact of the research, and add value by delivering new or additional forms of collective output, most notably a project exhibition. At the same time we will continue to support other groups that are seeking to develop community heritage projects. In order to achieve these objectives, the research group will work closely with Swansea University's archives, media and IT services, Department of Adult Continuing Education and Taliesin Arts Centre, as well as five external partners, to provide targeted research support, and a programme of training to enhance the development and delivery of outputs, especially those of a digital type. The project' s external partners are The National Waterfront Museum, Swansea; West Glamorgan Archives Service; The Libraries Service of City and County of Swansea; Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust; and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery A number of different groups will derive benefit from the project. First and foremost, the community groups working on 'All Our Stories' projects will benefit from targeted support and the co-production of research. This process with greatly enhance the knowledge and skills of community groups across the region, and it will add value to their creation and delivery of project outputs. Other community groups will benefit from the engagement with the research team as they develop new collaborative research projects. The eventual dissemination of community group research findings will benefit the wider public in Swansea and south-west Wales by enhancing understanding of collective and individual histories. This turn will inform a better understanding of the region's heritage and identity, as well as its sense of place within local, national, and global contexts. The project partners will benefit from this collaborative project because through creative engagement with both HEI and non-HEI researchers. Building on Phase 1, the project will continue to widen access to the partners' resources and will help to facilitate the increased use of their facilities, knowledge, and skills. Postgraduate students involved in the project as project champions offering support to the community groups will directly benefit from the project because it will give them real-world experiences of collaborative projects and enable them to identify, develop and also learn new transferable skills, for example - self-awareness, initiative, teamwork, action planning, leadership, communication, networking, problem solving, flexibility, etc. These transferable skills will be essential for students in their future careers.

Detrimental effects of air pollution on child health include altered function of the lungs, brain and heart and can begin during fetal development. Therefore, pregnant women have a unique position in efforts to understand and lessen the adverse effects of air pollution. Past years have seen a focus on outdoor pollution from traffic and industry but recently attention has moved to the effects of indoor air pollution. Most people spend more than 90% of their time indoors where they are exposed to pollutants from things like frying foods, wood burning stoves and to the chemicals in clothing, furniture and cleaning products. Outdoor air pollutants also accumulate in the home especially in the colder months; exposure to indoor air pollutants also occurs at work, in school and other places we visit. The little information we have about the effects of indoor air pollution exposures during pregnancy suggests that they have negative effects on the developing baby affecting birth weight and lung function; other effects have not been studied. Our studies are designed to determine how air pollution exposures of pregnant women pass to the baby to affect organ development and poor health in childhood. By sharing our findings with local and national government, business, charities and the public we will provide them with the evidence to make changes to policy and practice that will eventually reduce the ill-effects of pregnancy air pollution exposures on child health. We will study the effects of airborne materials on different biological samples collected from pregnant women at different trimesters, not pregnant women and men. These samples will include nasal samples as a source from the airways that is safe to use in pregnancy, peripheral and umbilical cord blood, placenta and sperm and we will develop a human lung model. Samples will be exposed to PM2.5, components of house dust and volatile organic compounds, such as the chemicals found in cleaning products, alone and in combination including with other airborne materials such as pollen and viruses. This will enable us to track the passage and propagation of the response to airborne materials from the maternal airways, through the circulation to the placenta and fetus. We will measure changes in gene, protein and metabolite expression to determine if the toxicological response made differs in pregnant women. To elucidate the link between these toxicological responses and fetal organ development we will study animal models in parallel to determine what effects the maternal exposures are having. We will also study pregnant women in the community to gather data about their indoor environment. This will be linked to already gathered data about the outdoor environment and to other data collected routinely about all of us such as health data to help us understand how pregnant women change their use of indoor and outdoor environments over pregnancy and what this means for birth outcomes and later health of the child. We will collect biological samples such as nasal fluid, blood, urine and placenta from women in this cohort to see if these tissues from women with natural exposures share changes in gene, protein and metabolite expression with our laboratory models. Overall, this approach will reveal pregnancy-specific toxicological responses to airborne materials that can affect the developing offspring. All participants will be from diverse backgrounds, geographical areas and socioeconomic circumstances incorporating the lowest to highest potential exposures within the UK ensuring broad applicability of our findings and revealing the effects of health inequalities. Our activities will be supported by citizen science and vigorous management structures to ensure cohesive UK-wide consortium activities. The unique insights garnered will shape guidelines and policy and provide a step change in the implementation of behaviours and interventions to truly engender long-term health benefits for children.