The Causes and Consequences of Job-Related Stress among Prosecutors

Despite a growing body of literature documenting work stress among employees in various fields, there is a dearth of research that explicitly assesses the impact of different aspects of prosecutors' working conditions on individual prosecutors and their organizations. Drawing on a sample of prosecutors in a southern state in the U.S., we first used OLS regression to examine which work-related stressors are important in predicting their levels of work stress, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Using path analysis, we then explored the links between these stressors and a set of proposed mediating and outcome variables. We also conducted unstructured in-depth interviews with a subset of the sample to supplement and further illustrate the observed patterns. While job demands and organizational support play the most important roles in explaining the work stress of prosecutors, they do not have direct impact on the prosecutor's commitment to the job. The roles played by psychological and emotional stressors are found to be negligible. Job-related stressors do not lead to turnover intention directly but indirectly through work stress and job satisfaction with a notable exception of the public/media stressor. This study provides a scientifically-based perspective regarding which working conditions should be addressed to maintain healthy and productive working environments among prosecutors.N

Biomechanical, ultrastructural, and electrophysiological characterization of the non-human primate experimental glaucoma model

Abstract Laser-induced experimental glaucoma (ExGl) in non-human primates (NHPs) is a common animal model for ocular drug development. While many features of human hypertensive glaucoma are replicated in this model, structural and functional changes in the unlasered portions of trabecular meshwork (TM) of laser-treated primate eyes are understudied. We studied NHPs with ExGl of several years duration. As expected, ExGl eyes exhibited selective reductions of the retinal nerve fiber layer that correlate with electrophysiologic measures documenting a link between morphologic and elctrophysiologic endpoints. Softening of unlasered TM in ExGl eyes compared to untreated controls was observed. The degree of TM softening was consistent, regardless of pre-mortem clinical findings including severity of IOP elevation, retinal nerve fiber layer thinning, or electrodiagnostic findings. Importantly, this softening is contrary to TM stiffening reported in glaucomatous human eyes. Furthermore, microscopic analysis of unlasered TM from eyes with ExGl demonstrated TM thinning with collapse of Schlemm’s canal; and proteomic analysis confirmed downregulation of metabolic and structural proteins. These data demonstrate unexpected and compensatory changes involving the TM in the NHP model of ExGl. The data suggest that compensatory mechanisms exist in normal animals and respond to elevated IOP through softening of the meshwork to increase outflow