Auxiliary words are key elements in observing expressive characteristics and stylistics of articles, and the study of diachronic changes in auxiliary words is helpful in understanding the process of language evolution and stylistic changes. In this study, we applied a statistical approach to investigate the diachronic variation in auxiliary words, and examined the correlation between these changes and stylistics. Our experiments were conducted on a diachronic corpus consisting of contemporary novels. The publication dates of these novels spanned from 1910 to 2014. First, through a phylogenetic tree analysis, it was confirmed that the use of auxiliary words changed significantly. Second, we conducted an elastic net regression, and extracted those particles that play important roles in model construction. The findings of this research point to concrete evidence for language change and offer a better understanding of the dynamicity of stylistic features in modern Japanese novels.

　The dissemination of mobile devices and the establishment of various communication modes enlarge a growth potential of services utilizing location information of mobile devices. The aim of this study is to describe the role of mobile location service (MLS) provider, MLS technology, and its function, and also to clarify the relationship among those. While previous literature has emphasized the role of third party in expansion of MLS functions, our results how that integrative platformers including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple play key roles provide diverse MLS functions, who have core technologies in acquiring location information and developing software for mobile devices and utilize short range information.

　In response to the rise in the number of elderly persons, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare is promoting the enhancement of community-based integrated care systems and the concept of regional medical care. In order to do this effectively, it will be important to share information among primary doctors, acute care hospitals, community-based integrated support centers, and other facilities. A main existing method of providing information between medical facilities is through the use of patient referral document (designated as Form 11). However, most of those are written as a series of sentences in free format and it remains transient means of communication only on referring a patient. At this stage, we need to grasp the present described situation of patient referral documents toward the digitalization of Form 11 to share information among the related facilities for secondary applications other than referrals. In this paper, we closely review the contents of 1,000 patient referral documents provided to a regional medical support hospital (Hospital S) from nearby medical facilities and analyze their compliance with the basic items of the designated Form 11 from the aspects of preparation means (handwriting or typing), number of characters, and scale for medical facilities.