The Understanding of “Rest” and its Effects upon Athletes’ Sport-Performance and General Well-Being

Abstract This thesis inductively builds a theoretical framework and understanding of athletes’ rest, pertaining to the perceived effects that it has upon their sporting performance and general well-being. Collectively, this thesis utilises a mixed methods design in order to comprehend the meanings and values that athletes have upon rest. The initial study utilised a grounded theory approach to explore athletes’ specific experiences of rest along with their personal perceptions of “what rest means to them”. For the second study a descriptive correlational quantitative design was used to identify significant differences in athletes’: use, frequency of use, and perceived effectiveness of resting techniques across a large and generalised sample. Additionally, significant differences were also sought found regarding athletes’ varying sport types and level of competition. The final study utilised a longitudinal qualitative content analysis design to examine the perceptual variances of athlete rest over the course of a competitive season. This thesis offers a conceptual model of rest that portrays the interplay between the: cessation of activity, perceptions of sport performance, and general well-being. Contributing to this model, concepts including: interaction, switching-off, adaptation, and sport specifications build upon the general understanding of rest as the cessation of activity. The dynamics of these relationships encompass the fluid variation on how rest can affect an individual’s sport performance and general well-being. Overall, this thesis is able to generate an initial conceptual model and understanding of athlete rest from a sport psychology perspective. As rest is not a concept that is studied directly or extensively in most academic disciplines, further investigation into rest across other domains is necessary in order to better understand its implications upon performance and well-being more generally

Conformational transitions of the sodium-dependent sugar transporter, vSGLT.

Sodium-dependent transporters couple the flow of Na+ ions down their electrochemical potential gradient to the uphill transport of various ligands. Many of these transporters share a common core structure composed of a five-helix inverted repeat and deliver their cargo utilizing an alternating-access mechanism. A detailed characterization of inward-facing conformations of the Na+-dependent sugar transporter from Vibrio parahaemolyticus (vSGLT) has previously been reported, but structural details on additional conformations and on how Na+ and ligand influence the equilibrium between other states remains unknown. Here, double electron-electron resonance spectroscopy, structural modeling, and molecular dynamics are utilized to deduce ligand-dependent equilibria shifts of vSGLT in micelles. In the absence and presence of saturating amounts of Na+, vSGLT favors an inward-facing conformation. Upon binding both Na+ and sugar, the equilibrium shifts toward either an outward-facing or occluded conformation. While Na+ alone does not stabilize the outward-facing state, gating charge calculations together with a kinetic model of transport suggest that the resting negative membrane potential of the cell, absent in detergent-solubilized samples, may stabilize vSGLT in an outward-open conformation where it is poised for binding external sugars. In total, these findings provide insights into ligand-induced conformational selection and delineate the transport cycle of vSGLT

A Cognitive View of Pandemic Meditation (A Mathematical Visual Poem)

Mathematical visual poetry is a poetic genre whereby metaphorical expressions are created using mathematical structures. Within the structure, the poetics are understood by the cross-mapping of numerous conceptual domains including visual, lexical, and mathematical. Here I focus on one particular mathematical visual poetic structure: what I call a Similar Triangles Poem or Proportional Poem. To illustrate the ideas discussed, I present Pandemic Meditations, a mathematical visual poem; in particular I discuss how this mathematical poem uses the mechanisms of poetic metaphor in the context of the embodied mind. The intent of this paper is not to explain Pandemic Meditation, for explanations of poetry serve only to kill it. Instead, the intent here is to give the reader the tools to access similar triangles poems in general, and this expression in particular, and to show how it functions within the definitions of poetic metaphor. This paper can be used as a template to study all similar triangles visual poems, and more generally, as a source to study visual poetry

Newton’s Third Law in Karmic Warfare

A work entitled Newton\u27s Third Law in Karmic Warfare is a mathematical visual poem which is a perfect example of a technique, that I call The Paradigm Poem. This piece makes a direct connection with the concept of karma and Newton’s Third Law of motion. I will introduce the concept of “The Mathematical Paradigm Poem” to illuminate an example of how metaphor is used in mathematical visual poetry. I will also discuss much of the process in making this aesthetic expression

Madness As Epistemic Advantage: The Relevance Of Standpoint Epistemology To The Evolution Of Mental Health Care

The intent of this thesis is to examine the potential epistemic advantage possessed by those with lived experience of mental illness. The frequent lack of conceptual alignment between the perspectives of individuals with lived experience and the biomedical model of mental illness has often resulted in epistemic injustice—lived experiential knowledge tends to be devalued and excluded from larger discussions about mental health. I propose that by occupying a marginalized social location and critically engaging with one’s social position, psychopathologized individuals may achieve a standpoint that allows a deeper comprehension of the systems of power that affect the mental health care system, illuminates the nature of mental illness and its phenomenological qualities, and results in an advantage in identifying promising methods of alleviating mental distress. I evaluate and respond to several objections to this proposal, including physician paternalism and concerns about lived experiential knowledge compromising the scientific objectivity of the mental health care fields. I conclude that those with lived experience of mental illness who have critically engaged with their madness—such as those involved in Mad Studies, peer support, or other forms of advocacy—can make invaluable contributions to the field of mental health, and it is both ethically and epistemically necessary that we meaningfully integrate these contributions

Investigating the dynamic nature of the ABC transporters: ABCB1 and MsbA as examples for the potential synergies of MD theory and EPR applications

ABC transporters are primary active transporters found in all kingdoms of life. Human multidrug resistance transporter ABCB1, or P-glycoprotein, has an extremely broad substrate spectrum and confers resistance against chemotherapy drug treatment in cancer cells. The bacterial ABC transporter MsbA is a lipid A flippase and a homolog to the human ABCB1 transporter, with which it partially shares its substrate spectrum. Crystal structures of MsbA and ABCB1 have been solved in multiple conformations, providing a glimpse into the possible conformational changes the transporter could be going through during the transport cycle. Crystal structures are inherently static, while a dynamic picture of the transporter in motion is needed for a complete understanding of transporter function. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy can provide structural information on ABC transporters, but the strength of these two methods lies in the potential to characterise the dynamic regime of these transporters. Information from the two methods is quite complementary. MD simulations provide an all atom dynamic picture of the time evolution of the molecular system, though with a narrow time window. EPR spectroscopy can probe structural, environmental and dynamic properties of the transporter in several time regimes, but only through the attachment sites of an exogenous spin label. In this review the synergistic effects that can be achieved by combining the two methods are highlighted, and a brief methodological background is also presented

Membrane transporters studied by EPR spectroscopy: structure determination and elucidation of functional dynamics

During their mechanistic cycles membrane transporters often undergo extensive conformational changes, sampling a range of orientations, in order to complete their function. Such membrane transporters present somewhat of a challenge to conventional structural studies; indeed, crystallization of membrane-associated proteins sometimes require conditions that vary vastly from their native environments. Moreover, this technique currently only allows for visualization of single selected conformations during any one experiment. EPR spectroscopy is a magnetic resonance technique that offers a unique opportunity to study structural, environmental and dynamic properties of such proteins in their native membrane environments, as well as readily sampling their substrate-binding-induced dynamic conformational changes especially through complementary computational analyses. Here we present a review of recent studies that utilize a variety of EPR techniques in order to investigate both the structure and dynamics of a range of membrane transporters and associated proteins, focusing on both primary (ABC-type transporters) and secondary active transporters which were key interest areas of the late Professor Stephen Baldwin to whom this review is dedicated