A Particle-in-Cell (PIC) code, called Parsek2D, for the simulation of astrophysical and space plasmas is presented. Parsek2D enables simulations with large grid spacing and long time step, by means of implicit time differentiation and parallel computing. An implicit formulation of the PIC algorithm removes the severe numerical stability constraints of explicitly time-differenced PIC. Parallel s...

Pentobarbital (PB) and picrotoxin (PIC) bind to allosterically coupled sites on the GABAA receptor complex but have opposite effects on GABA receptor currents. PB, an anesthetic/anticonvulsant, enhances, and PIC, a convulsant, inhibits GABA receptor currents. PB and PIC also had opposite effects on single main conductance channel GABA receptor currents recorded from excised outside-out patches ...

Transcription consists of a series of highly regulated steps: assembly of the preinitiation complex (PIC) at the promoter, initiation, elongation, and termination. PIC assembly is nucleated by TFIID, a complex composed of the TATA-binding protein (TBP) and a series of TBP-associated factors (TAFs). One component, TAF7, is incorporated in the PIC through its interaction with TFIID but is release...

A constitutively active population of alpha(1D)-adrenoceptors in iliac and proximal, distal, and small mesenteric rat arteries was studied. The increase in resting tone (IRT) that evidences it was observed only in iliac and proximal mesenteric and was inhibited by prazosin (pIC(50) = 9.57), 5-methylurapidil (pIC(50) = 7.61), and BMY 7378 (pIC(50) = 8.77). Chloroethylchlonidine (100 micromol/l) ...

The dendrites of motoneurons are not, as once thought, passive conduits for synaptic inputs. Instead they have voltage-dependent channels that provide the capacity to generate a very strong persistent inward current (PIC). The amplitude of the PIC is proportional to the level of neuromodulatory input from the brainstem, which is mediated primarily by the monoamines serotonin and norepinephrine....

We assess the quantitative accuracy of the particle-in-cell (PIC) approximation used in recent ab initio predictions of the thermodynamic properties of hexagonal-closepacked iron at the conditions of the Earth’s inner core. The assessment is made by comparing PIC predictions for a range of thermodynamic properties with the results of more exact calculations that avoid the PIC approximation. It ...

We present a portable platform, called PIC ENGINE, for accelerating Particle-In-Cell (PIC) codes on heterogeneous many-core architectures such as Graphic Processing Units (GPUs). The aim of this development is efficient simulations on future exascale systems by allowing different parallelization strategies depending on the application problem and the specific architecture. To this end, this pla...

Palaearctic species of the weevil genus Mecinus Germar, 1821 are revised. A total of 47 species are recognized, one of which, M. baridioides sp. n. is new to science. Mecinus dorsalis var. tavaresi Hoffmann, 1958 (stat. rev.) is considered as a distinct species, whereas M. alboscutellatus var. atratulus (Solari, 1933) is maintained as a subspecies of M. alboscutellatus (Hustache, 1913). The fol...