PCA

PCA or PCa may refer to:

Medicine and biology

• Patient-controlled analgesia, any method of allowing a person in pain to administer his own pain relief
• Personal Care Assistant/Attendant or Patient Care Assistant, a caregiver who assists a person with day-to-day tasks
• Plate count agar (microbiology), a microbiological growth medium
• Polymerase cycling assembly, a method for the assembly of large DNA oligonucleotides from shorter fragments
• Posterior cerebral artery (neuroscience), a blood vessel to the posterior aspect of the brain (occipital lobe)
• Posterior cortical atrophy, the visual variant of Alzheimer’s disease
• Posterior cricoarytenoid muscle, laryngeal muscle involved with opening the vocal chord
• Prostate cancer antigen
• Protein-fragment Complementation Assay, a method for the identification of protein–protein interactions in biological systems

Military and government

• Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EU)
• Permanent Change of Assignment, describes the reassignment of active duty military personnel to a new unit within the same post
• Personal Capability Assessment, see Employment and Support Allowance (UK)

Organizations

Education

• Paris College of Art, an American private university in Paris, France
• Pasig Christian Academy, a school located in Caniogan, Pasig City, Philippines
• Pensacola Christian Academy, a private Christian school in Pensacola, Florida
• Peoples Christian Academy, a private Christian school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Pittsburgh Classical Academy Middle School, a middle school with an academic program that focuses on classical history
• Plano Christian Academy, an Evangelical, non-denominational, private, Classical Christian school supporting grades K-12
• Prestonwood Christian Academy, a private Christian Pre K-12 school in Plano, Texas
• Providence Christian Academy (disambiguation), for multiple schools

Games

• PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, European Poker Tour event
• Professional Chess Association, from 1993 to 1996, a rival organisation to FIDE, the international chess organization

Political

• Parti Communiste Algérien (Algerian Communist Party)
• Partido Comunista de Andalucía (Communist Party of Andalusia)
• Partido Comunista de Aragón (Communist Party of Aragon)
• Partido Comunista de la Argentina (Communist Party of Argentina)

Religion

• Presbyterian Church in America, a Protestant Christian denomination, the second largest Presbyterian body in the United States after the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Presbyterian Church of Australia, the largest Presbyterian denomination in Australia

Sports

• Positive Coaching Alliance, provides training workshops to schools and youth sports organizations (USA)
• Professional Cricketers' Association, representative body of past and present first class cricketers in England and Wales
• Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali, India

Other

• Police Complaints Authority (disambiguation)
• Porsche Club of America, an organization of Porsche enthusiasts in the United States and Canada
• POSC Caesar Association, a standardization organization, custodian of ISO 15926
• Predator Conservation Alliance (USA), founded in 1991, a conservation group based in Bozeman, Montana

Science and technology

• para-Chloroamphetamine or 4-Chloroamphetamine
• Principal component analysis, a statistical procedure
• Printed Circuit Assembly or Printed circuit board
• Probabilistic Cellular Automaton (Math/Stochastic Processes)
• Propulsion Controlled Aircraft, a computer-assisted propulsion control system that enables the safe landing of an aircraft when its normal control surfaces such as elevators, rudders, and ailerons are disabled.
• Protocatechuic acid, a polyphenol antioxidant
• Pyroglutamic acid, an amino acid derivative

Computers

• Physical configuration audit, in configuration management
• Polymorphous Computer Architectures, see Josep Torrellas

Other uses

• Peanut Corporation of America, a peanut processor forced out of business after being found to be the source of a massive salmonella outbreak in the United States
• Permanent Court of Arbitration, based in The Hague, the oldest international institution for dispute resolution
• Personal carbon allowance, a ration of allowed carbon emissions for individuals, designed to help address human-caused global warming
• Production Code Administration, a division of the Motion Picture Association of America
• Prompt Corrective Action, a law which requires penalties for banks which don't meet their capital requirements
• Pacific Coast Academy, the fictional school in which the Nickelodeon television series Zoey 101 is set
• Packaging Corporation of America, a containerboard and corrugated packaging products company in the United States
• People's Choice Awards, an American awards show recognizing popular culture, held annually and voted on by the general public