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This paper provides a comprehensive review of literature on the properties of sugar industry waste, their varied uses in energy and construction sector, performance and limitations. An efficient upcycling of sugar industry waste in energy production would help the energy sector to reduce its dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels. Literature demonstrates that in the recent years there has been an increased research interest in thermochemical conversion of sugarcane bagasse to produce cleaner energy, rather than its landfilling or combustion. On the other hand, utilisation of secondary by-products from sugar industry in the production of cement, bricks, paver blocks, activated binder and other construction products helps to cut down the carbon footprint of the construction industry, while improving the properties of the final products. From the perspective of the sugar industry, such an arrangement eliminates disposal problems and creates additional revenue. Although independent research studies investigating the use of sugar industry by-products exist, few studies consider these valorisation options together to minimise waste and to create an efficient material flow chain. This study identifies various material and energy recovery pathways from published literature and connects the materials and processes to form a continuous material supply chain with minimum wastage. From the findings, a symbiotic framework has been developed with primary and secondary by-products from the sugar industry serving as source materials for energy production and sustainable construction products.

IOT based smart home with cloud analytics are becoming popular, as it helps in analyzing the real time power consumption. Home Automation System [HAS] and remote control system in a smart home opens up many ways to control the loads in a smart home. But, there are a lot of challenges when all these features are combined together to make a low cost smart home system. Often in the design, the HAS and remote controllability can conflict with each other when trying to control the same load. This paper outlines the design of a low cost smart switch that incorporates HAS, remote controllability and IOT cloud platform. It also describes the challenges faced and a possible solution.

The use of nanotechnology is of prominent research interest in the construction industry. Introducing nanomaterials into cementitious systems enhances its characteristic material properties. Nano-silica is the most efficient nanomaterial in replacing cement without compromising its strength and durability. Nano-silica also enhances the properties of cement when in conjugation with other supplementary cementitious materials. Nano-silica offers high chemical reactivity and introduces filler effect in the cement matrix, thereby densifying the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) and improving the properties of cement-based materials. However, the addition of nano-silica more than the optimum dosage reduces the strength and durability. Apart from the dosage, many other parameters also influence the properties of nano-slica blended cement composites. This study deals with the changes in characteristic properties of cement and cement-based materials upon incorporation of nano-silica.

Extensive studies have been reported on the development of service-life prediction of reinforced concrete structures in the last two decades. Service life of a reinforced concrete structure is dependent on the corrosion process, specifically chloride threshold value. Chloride threshold value is a distinctive property and is dependent on several factors such as the supplementary cementitious material used, presence of surface cracks, water to binder ratio, type of steel reinforcement, exposure conditions, measurement methods, etc. Although chloride threshold value is an influential parameter in service-life prediction, a definitive chloride threshold value considering these factors is not reported in the existing literature and standards. Moreover, values adopted in many analytical tools for service life predictions based on the type of steel reinforcement alone are not appropriate and leads to inaccurate calculations. There is a gap in the available literature in understanding the selection of suitable chloride threshold values to be adopted for a specific system. Therefore, it is imperative to study the variation of chloride threshold value with exposure conditions as well as other influencing parameters, to achieve proper service life prediction. In the paper, several influencing parameters on chloride threshold value and its significance on prediction method are comprehensively reviewed. Moreover, suitable recommendations are highlighted for Indian and international standards at the later part of the study.

In this paper a hybrid cavity substrate integrated waveguide filter is proposed and demonstrated for Ku band application. Hybrid cavity which is the combination of both circular and rectangular cavity, showcases a better frequency selectivity and Quality Factor in comparison with other cavity based substrate integrated waveguide filters. Quality Factor requirements are met by the introduction of shorting posts at specified points inside the cavity. Filter operates at a frequency of 13GHz with an optimized Q factor of 377.096. The detailed analysis of the proposed structure is simulated and studied using the ANSYS HFSS software.

In this paper a Substrate Integrated Waveguide based filter is designed in Ku Band by making use of a Circular Cavity at the center. Furthermore, in order to enhance the Q factor of the filter shorting posts are provided at optimized positions within the Circular Cavity. The designed filter operates at a frequency of 16.93 GHz and is optimized for a Q factor of 367. The filter parameters are acquired using the ANSYS HFSS simulator.