We study the generalized efficiency of an adiabatically rocked ratchet with both spatial and temporal asymmetry. We obtain an analytical expression for the generalized efficiency in the deterministic case. Generalized efficiency of the order of 50% is obtained by fine tuning of the parameter range. This is unlike the case of thermodynamic efficiency where we could readily get an enhanced efficiency of upto 90%. The observed higher values of generalized efficiency is attributed to be due to the suppression of backward current. We have also discussed briefly the differences between thermodynamic, rectification or generalized efficiency and Stoke's efficiency. Temperature is found to optimize the generalized efficiency over a wide range of parameter space unlike in the case of thermodynamic efficiency.

Thirty‐eight brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis were fed a commercial trout diet mixed with a free‐choice assortment of soft plastic lures (SPLs) over a 90‐d period. Fish growth was recorded and compared with that of a control group. The brook trout readily ate the SPLs from the water's surface as well as from the tank bottom. At the conclusion of the study, SPLs were recovered from the stomachs of 63% of the test fish. Several fish stomachs contained multiple lures. Twelve percent of the fish voluntarily ingested more than 10% of their body mass in SPLs. These fish lost a significant amount of weight during the study, had a significant decrease in body condition factor, and began displaying anorexic behaviors. For these reasons, anglers should be discouraged from discarding used SPLs in trout waters.

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We study the steady state properties of a system of particles interacting via hard core exclusion and moving in a discrete flashing disordered ratchet potential. Quenched disorder is introduced by breaking the periodicity of the ratchet potential through changing shape of the potential across randomly chosen but fixed periods. We show that the effects of quenched disorder can be broadly classified as strong or weak with qualitatively different behaviour of the steady state particle flux as a function of overall particle density. We further show that most of the effects including a density driven nonequilibrium phase transition observed can be understood by constructing an effective asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) with quenched disorder in the hop rates.