In order to develop "competent academic abilities" among students, the problem solving approach is emphasized in the present Course of Study. In the problem solving approach, competency in solving problems, such as intellectual curiosity, critical thinking power, insight and creativity is needed. The problem solving approach is applied mainly in "the period of integrated study" at school, but devising methods of its instruction in the lessons of each respective subject in order to utilize the knowledge and skills of said subjects in an appropriate manner is also important. Especially, in order to extensively develop competency in mathematical problem solving, it is necessary to devise how to carry out the problem solving approach and utilize the knowledge and skills for the approach in mathematics lessons. The problem solving approach also has advantages such as encouraging fresh awareness of the meaning of knowledge and skills to be learned in each subject.

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As social change became rapidly since the second half of the 20th century, the way of education has also changed. In this paper, based on the sustainable and democratic society, competencies on the mathematical scientific problem solving, its educational significance, and mathematics curriculum and classroom lessons focused on the competencies, were discussed from the standpoint of a researcher on mathematics education. At first, 'Mathematical Science' - Mathematics, Statistics, and Industrial and applied mathematics - proposed by the Science Council of Japan was refereed. Ways of thinking in statistics and industrial and applied mathematics, which attempt to resolve problems based on real phenomena and data, were captured as mathematical scientific problem solving. Then, educational significance of the mathematical scientific methods such as problem solving and mathematics curriculum based on problem solving of Japan were discussed and several mathematical classroom lessons based on problem solving of Japan were investigated. Thereafter, key points for fostering competencies on the mathematical scientific problem solving were considered.

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For Japan to be a leading country in the global society, it is indispensable that Japanese citizens each should have competencies of high quality on mathematical-scientific problem solving. In this report, we took up the Bowland Maths project of England and the COMPASS project of the EU as cases to be considered and compared them with the current conditions of mathematics education in Japan, and pointed out some of the main problems which we should address in conducting such teaching practice so as to foster competencies on mathematical-scientific problem solving. Those are the development of case study type- and inquiry-based teaching materials, teaching methods to promote discussions between students, the creation of frameworks for cross-curriculum learning, development of the tasks and the rubrics concerning formative assessment. And we pointed out that teachers' training (pre-service and in-service training for teachers) is the key to the solution of the problems and that the cooperation between industrial and educational circles is very important in that field.

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Reflecting on the rapid change in society, the cultivation of human resources with a high level of problem-solving ability is now required in Japan, in order to survive global competition. However, the training for developing problem-solving ability on the basis of evidence in elementary and lower secondary education is lagging far behind that of Western countries. Problem-solving consists of numerous processes, such as finding a task by oneself, learning by oneself, thinking by oneself, proactively judging by oneself, and solving a problem more effectively. In order to acquire these processes, it is necessary to study not only a particular subject but also cross-subject. According to a recent study, teachers do not understand the importance of these processes, nor do they have the familiarity. This article proposes the developing an additional course, which should be included as part of the teacher training course. The goals of the course are to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem-solving processes, develop the ability for preparing appropriate teaching materials and designing lessons. Now industry - government - academia joint study should be implemented to achieve the goal.

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We are living an era in which we can easily obtain much information by using various technologies. In this era, it is necessary to develop competencies and skills for effective problem solving, such as identifying problems by oneself, learning by oneself, thinking by oneself, deciding independently, and improving the process of problem solving. The development of these skills must be supported by education as early as possible. A research has officially started on developing these skills in the Japanese educational system. On the other hand, Japanese QC and Japanese industry have developed know-how for effective problem-solving based on data. And these effective problem-solving activities are being completed by QC Circle. In this paper, the aim is to support development of skills for problem-solving based on data from primary school students by applying QC methods. This paper also presents a case study by which students can learn how to solve or improve a problem.

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A period time at late 1980s, Sanden had some problems on the new products. And also, while the Japanese economy had been sinking in the collapse of the bubble economy, Sanden had faced number of problems regarding the individual management quality. For those problems, STQM (Sanden TQM) which added its own uniqueness and purpose onto TQM which included improvement of management quality was deployed company-wide. And further reform has been achieved by the deployment of Challenging-Innovative-Activities toward to win the Deming Prize and Japan Quality Control Medal. To consider how quality management of Japan should be in 21 century from the stand point of Japan's role in the globalism and in the environment issues would be a key to evolve TQM as the nation of scientific and technological powerhouse. We strongly wish TQM will develop as a further valid management tool in addition to taking action boldly with dream, hope and high aspirations.

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In most previous studies of maintenance decision-making, systems were assumed to deteriorate in accordance with a stationary state transition law. However, the deterioration of a system sometimes depends on its age (calendar time, total operating time, etc). In this research, optimal maintenance decision-making was investigated for systems with age-dependent deterioration. The problem was formulated as a non-stationary Markov decision process. The properties of the optimal expected cost function were examined, and the optimal maintenance decision-making policy was found to be given by a two-dimensional control limit policy with respect to both the system's deterioration state and age under certain conditions. A numerical example of a power transformer demonstrated that a control limit policy that takes both state and age into consideration is optimal for this system and is also better than the existing maintenance guideline. Such an age-dependent maintenance policy supports the implementation of a system-specific maintenance plan.

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