The concept of environment in andragogical literature and university education of andragogues

This paper is based on the assumption that to facilitate the contribution of andragogy and adult education to the processes of "societal transformation", we as researchers and university teachers are required to question our own understanding and integration of the concept of the environment as one of the key dimensions of sustainable development in this area. The paper starts by asking the following questions: In what way are the environment and the relation of the human kind and environment conceptualized in andragogical literature? Does the integration of this concept contribute to the disappearance or the balance of knowledge about the environment within adult education, in a general sense and in university education, in particular, and in what way does it contribute? In our search for answers, we employed the qualitative trend analysis to conceptualize the environment in the works of authors in the field of environmental adult education, originating from the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. We shall analyse terminological and conceptual relations among environmental and ecological constructs, as well as their relation to the concept of sustainable development.

Assessment of Coke Oven Operating State Using Trend Analysis and Information Entropy

In the combustion process of a coke oven, it is crucial to evaluate the operating state to ensure control performance for the stabilization of the coke oven temperature. This paper presents an assessment method for a coke oven operating state based on the analysis of the mechanism. A coke oven, which is an integrator, is categorized into serial subsystems, which include two coking chambers and one combustion chamber. First, the raw gas temperature of every coking chamber is extracted online and is combined with the qualitative trend analysis that yields the feature point of the raw gas temperature. Subsequently, fuzzy method is presented to describe the uncertainty and evaluate the heat level of each subsystem. Finally, a comprehensive assessment of the operating state of the coke oven is performed by combining the weighted contribution of all subsystems, which is expressed by information entropy. Simulations and experiments demonstrate the validity of the method.

Approach to Online Defect Monitoring in Fused Deposition Modeling Based on the Variation of the Temperature Field

According to the surface state of the product, a process quality monitoring technology based on a Qualitative Trend Analysis method is proposed. The construction of the product surface defect knowledge base provides a basis for online monitoring of the nozzle status of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) machine. Ten workpieces are designed in all, and each one conducts two prints which are normal and abnormal, respectively. An infrared thermal imager is used to obtain the temperature image of each layer of the workpiece surface; the feature values are extracted, and the difference between the feature values in the two kinds of printing is calculated. The Qualitative Trend Analysis method is used to analyze the difference in order to obtain the corresponding sensitive feature parameters corresponding to the starting points in different phases of the product printing. The change rules of the sensitive feature values are summarized, and the threshold of each starting point is solved. Base on that, the knowledge rules are defined and the defect knowledge base is constructed. Finally, a new experiment is designed to obtain the theoretical starting point of each state of the product surface in the building process. By comparing the theoretical starting point with the actual starting point, the feasibility of the knowledge rules in monitoring the nozzle working state is verified.