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Aims: Due to a prolonged period of national and regional lockdown measures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there has been an increase reliance on informal care for informal carers. In light of this, the current study compared the experiences of carers and non-carers on various mental health and wellbeing measures across six key time points during the pandemic. Methods: Data analysed were from the University College London (UCL) COVID -19 Social Study. Our study focused on six time points in England: (1) the first national lockdown (March–April 2020); (2) the beginning of first lockdown rules easing (May 2020); (3) the second national lockdown (November 2020); (4) the third national lockdown (January 2021); (5) the easing of the third lockdown (March 2021); and (6) the end of restrictions (July–August 2021). We considered five mental health and wellbeing measures: depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, loneliness, life satisfaction, and sense of being worthwhile. Propensity score matching was applied for the analyses. Results: We found that informal carers experienced higher levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms than non-carers across much of the pandemic. During the first national lockdown, carers also experienced a higher sense of life being worthwhile. No association was found between informal caring responsibilities and levels of loneliness and life satisfaction. Conclusion: Given that carers are an essential national healthcare support, especially during a pandemic, it is crucial to integrate carers' needs into healthcare planning and delivery. These results highlight that there is a pressing need to provide adequate and targeted mental health support for carers during and following this pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To Bourdieu, interaction with culture has symbolic power and drives the manifestation of social stratification. Many have adapted his theory and methodology, developing new models of cultural engagement. Here, to further integrate these theoretical and methodological approaches, Bourdieu's tools were used to operationalise and interpret a Latent Class Analysis of cultural engagement in the Understanding Society dataset. Six classes of increasing engagement were established, and were increasingly correlated with youth, capital and social advantage. However, some qualitative differences in engagement were also seen. The classes also varied by which characteristics correlated with membership. For example, economic capital was associated with sports engagement, while advantaged social position was associated with broad-scale engagement. Overall, this analysis combined Bourdieusian theory with contemporary methodology in the largest representative UK dataset and highlights the broader relevance of cultural engagement patterns in indicating (and possibly generating) status, identity, capital and social position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has brought about significant behavioural changes, one of which is increased time spent at home. This could have important public health implications. This study aimed to explore longitudinal patterns of 'home confinement' (defined as not leaving the house/garden) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated predictors and mental health outcomes. Methods: Data were from the UCL COVID-19 Social Study. The analytical sample consisted of 25 390 adults in England who were followed up for 17 months (March 2020–July 2021). Data were analysed using growth mixture models. Results: Our analyses identified three classes of growth trajectories, including one class showing a high level of persistent home confinement (the home-confined, 24.8%), one changing class with clear alignment with national containment measures (the adaptive, 32.0%), and one class with a persistently low level of confinement (the unconfined, 43.1%). A range of factors were associated with the class membership of home-confinement trajectories, such as age, gender, income, employment status, social relationships and health. The home-confined class had the highest number of depressive (diff = 1.34–1.68, p < 0.001) and anxiety symptoms (diff = 0.84–1.05, p < 0.001) at the end of the follow-up than the other two classes. Conclusions: There was substantial heterogeneity in longitudinal patterns of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic. People with a persistent high level of confinement had the worst mental health outcomes, calling for special attention in mental health action plans, in particular targeted interventions for at-risk groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although arts engagement holds promise for reducing loneliness and enhancing social support, previous research has focussed on older adults. We investigated whether arts engagement was associated with loneliness and social support during adolescence. Methods: We included 11,780 adolescents aged 11–21 years from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a nationally representative cohort study. We measured whether adolescents engaged in school-based arts activities (band, book club, chorus, choir, cheerleading, dance, drama club, newspaper, orchestra) at wave one (1994–1995). Loneliness and perceived social support from peers were measured at waves one and two (1996). We used logistic regression to test whether arts engagement was associated with concurrent and subsequent loneliness and social support. Results: Arts engagement was not associated with concurrent or subsequent loneliness. Compared to not engaging, doing one or more school-based arts activities was associated with 59% higher odds of high social support concurrently (odds ratio [OR] = 1.59, 95% CI = 1.32–1.91). However, this cross-sectional association was attenuated after adjusting for demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related covariates (adjusted OR [AOR] = 1.16, 95% CI = 0.95–1.42). In contrast, doing arts activities was associated with 28% higher odds of reporting high social support one year later (AOR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.03–1.59), independent of covariates and previous social support. Conclusions: Extracurricular arts activities are associated with increased odds of reporting good subsequent social support from peers. This may be because they provide opportunities for social engagement, developing friendships, and building a sense of community. Exploring these associations in more detail should be a priority, enabling better understanding of this strategy for enhancing social ties during adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a method for high-precision acquisition of position signals for permanent magnet direct drive servo motors at low speed. First of all, the problem of poor position feedback accuracy and sensor feedback delay in the low-speed operation of the permanent magnet direct drive servo motor is analyzed. Secondly, through analysis and simulation, it is found that the interpolation method can play a certain role in compensating the rotor position signal. However, when the speed is close to 0, the output signal of the sensor will fluctuate in a short time, which will affect the speed control accuracy. Therefore, this paper uses the observer method to achieve high-precision acquisition of the position signal of the permanent magnet direct drive servo motor at low speed. The observer method adopts the idea of combining the system model and closed-loop control. Additionally, it makes full use of the parameter information of the motor system. The control performance of the motor can be better guaranteed through the design of the observer parameters and the accuracy of the rotor position estimation result has been greatly improved. Finally, an experimental platform for permanent magnet direct drive servo motors is built, and the rotor position signal acquisition method based on the observer method is verified to have good performance through simulation and experiments. Not only the accuracy of the rotor position estimation result is improved, but also the motor control performance is improved, realizing the stable operation of the permanent magnet direct drive servo motor at low speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: There is a social gradient in both arts engagement and wellbeing that may have led to an overestimation of the impact of arts engagement on wellbeing. We tested whether participation in community arts groups was associated with wellbeing after removing confounding by demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related factors. Methods: Using propensity score matching, we analyzed data from 12,055 older adults in the Health and Retirement Study. We measured community arts groups participation and concurrent life satisfaction (evaluative wellbeing), positive and negative affect (experienced wellbeing), and purpose in life, constraints on personal control, and mastery (eudaimonic wellbeing). Results: After matching, arts group participation was associated with higher positive affect (average treatment effect on the treated [ATT] = 0.18, 95% CI = 0.12–0.24), life satisfaction (ATT = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.04–0.15), purpose in life (ATT = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.02–0.13), and mastery (ATT = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.01–0.14) than not participating. Participation was not associated with negative affect or constraints on personal control. In sensitivity analyses, these associations were maintained four years later. Conclusion: Arts group participation was associated with the positive elements of evaluative, experienced, and eudaimonic wellbeing. Facilitating participation in community arts groups could help to promote healthy aging, enabling a growing segment of the population to lead more fulfilling and satisfying lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel direct power control (DPC) strategy based on an optimized sector division for a three-phase coupled inductor-based bipolar output active rectifier (TCIBAR) applied in more electric aircraft (MEA). First, based on the instantaneous power theory, the power model of the TCIBAR is built in the synchronous rotating coordinate system. Second, to implement the hysteresis power control of TCIBAR without causing the runaway of the zero-sequence current in the three-phase coupled inductor (TCI), a set of new voltage vectors that have the same zero-sequence voltage (ZSV) component are synthesized and adopted in the proposed DPC strategy. Third, by quantitatively analyzing the effect of the new synthesized voltage vectors on the power variation of TCIBAR, an optimized sector division method is proposed to improve the accuracy of power control and reduce the phase current harmonics in TCIBAR. Finally, to maintain the voltage balance of the bipolar dc ports in TCIBAR, voltage balance control is studied in the proposed DPC strategy. The proposed DPC strategy is researched on an experimental platform of TCIBAR, and the results show that the proposed DPC strategy is feasible and has good static and dynamic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric transportation has made rapid developments and significant steps toward the full electrical powertrain systems. With the increased use of electric vehicles energy conversion systems several technologies have been developed and reached a high degree of performance. Since electric vehicles and hybrid are the more cost competitive technology available today, the evolution toward a more reliable powertrain combining different electric powertrain systems is needed. Induction machine and permanent magnet generators/motors integrated powertrains have some significant advantages over other types of systems such as no need of excitation, low volume and weight, high precision, and no use of a complex gearbox for torque/speed conversion. A electric vehicle powertrain for EV propulsion with a induction motor and a matrix converter is proposed in this paper. The induction motor is controlled using the direct torque flux algorithm. The traditional power conversion stages consist of a rectifier followed by an inverter and bulky DC link capacitor. It involves 2 stages of power conversion and, subsequently, the efficiency of the overall EV is reduced because of power quality issues mainly based on total harmonic distortion. The proposed solution incorporates a matrix converter is mainly utilized to control the induction electric motor for propulsion. The matrix converter is a simple and compact direct AC-AC converter. The proposed EV with matrix converter is modeled using PSIM.