• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.131-159
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• 2014

Corporate rebranding has been evident in the qualitative corporate rebranding studies as an imposed organizational change that induces mixed reactions and ambivalent attitudes among consumers. Corporate rebranding for the established and familiar corporate brands leads to more ambivalent attitudes as these companies represent larger targets for disparaging information. Consumers are found to hold both positive and negative reactions toward companies and brands that they are familiar with. Nevertheless, the imposed change assumption and ambivalent attitude, in particular corporate rebranding, have never been widely explored in the quantitative corporate rebranding studies. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive empirical examination of the ambivalence towards rebrandingrebranded brand attitude-purchase intention relationships. The author proposes that corporate rebranding for familiar corporate brands is a double-edged sword that not only raises the expectation for better performance, but also induces conflicted and ambivalent attitudes among consumers. These consumers' ambivalent attitudes are influenced by both the parent brands-related and general attitude factors which further affect their rebranded brand attitude and purchase intention. A total of 156 useable questionnaires were collected from Malaysian working adults; and two established Malaysian airfreight operators were utilized as the focal parent brands. The study found a significant impact of prior parent brand attitudes on ambivalence towards rebranding (ATR). The parent brand attitudes served as anchors in influencing how new information was processed (Mazaheri et al., 2011; Sherif & Hovland, 1961) and closely related to behavioral intention (Prislin & Quellete, 1996). The ambivalent attitudes experienced were higher when individuals held both positive and negative reactions toward the parent brands. Consumers also held higher ambivalent attitudes when they preferred one of the parent brands; while disliked the other brand. The study also found significant relationships between the lead brand and the rebranded brand attitude; and between the partner brands and ATR. The familiar but controversial partner brand contributed significantly to the ambivalent attitudes experienced; while the more established lead brand had significant impact on the rebranded brand attitude. The lead and partner brands, though both familiar, represented different meanings to consumers. The author attributed these results to the prior parent brand attitudes, the skepticism and their general ambivalence toward the corporate rebranding. Both general attitude factors (i.e. skepticism and general ambivalence towards rebranding) were found to have significant positive impacts on ATR. Skeptical individuals questioned the possibility of a successful rebranding (Chang, 2011) and were more careful with their evaluations toward 'too god to be true' or 'made in heaven' pair of companies. The embedded general ambivalent attitudes that people held toward rebranding could be triggered from the associative network by the ambiguous situation (Prislin & Quellete, 1996). In addition, the ambivalent rebranded brand attitude was found to lower down purchase intention, supporting Hanze (2001), Lavine (2001) and van Harreveld et al. (2009)'s studies. Ambivalent individuals were found to prefer delay decision making by choosing around the mid-ranged points in 'willingness to buy' scale. The study provides several marketing implications. Ambivalence management is proven to be important to corporate rebranding to minimize the ambivalent attitudes experienced. This could be done by carefully controlling the parent brands-related and general attitude factors. The high ambivalent individuals are less confident with their own conflicted attitudes and are motivated to get rid of the psychological discomfort caused by these conflicted attitudes (Bell & Esses, 2002; Lau-Gesk, 2005; van Harreveld et al., 2009). They tend to process information more deeply (Jonas et al., 1997; Maio et al., 2000; Wood et al., 1985) and pay more attention to message that provides convincible arguments. Providing strong, favorable and convincible message is hence effective in alleviating consumers' ambivalent attitudes. In addition, brand name heuristic could be utilized because the rebranding strategy sends important signal to consumers about the changes that happen or going to happen. The ambivalent individuals will pay attention to both brand name heuristic and rebranding message in their effort to alleviate the psychological discomfort caused by ambivalent attitudes. The findings also provide insights to Malaysian and airline operators for a better planning and implementation of corporate rebranding exercise.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.17
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• pp.197-225
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• 2004

The respective history of the Chinese Ancient Dynasties from the era of the ancient Emperors to the revolutionary era of Yin-Zhou殷周 was described in the Rongchengshi容成氏, one of the texts in Shanghai Bowuguan zang Zhanguo Chuzhushu(II)上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書(二) discovered in 1994 at an antique market in Hong Kong. Drawn from the historical explanations expressed in it, the anonymous author's own views on history could be observed as largely being composed of 'resignation'禪讓, 'usurpation'簒奪, and 'banishment/smite'放伐. Following the advent of the recently excavated bamboo slips of Rongchengshi, a careful reconsideration is urgently needed to the established interpretation on the origin of the ritual of resignation in the relevant academic circles. Because it shows us that the ritual of resignation as a way of the succession, judging from my analysis, was already realized by Nine Emperors('Rongchengshi', Zunlushi尊盧氏, Hexushi赫胥氏, Gaoxinshi高辛氏, Cangjieshi倉頡氏, Xuanyuanshi軒轅氏, Shennongshi神農氏, 渾沌氏, and Baoxishi包羲氏 and maybe the more) before the era of 'Yao-Shun'堯舜. Accordingly, the aforementioned fact, which has never been elaborated in the previous texts including the first Chinese historiography Shiji史記, is the only peculiar feature to the Rongchengshi itself. Thus, a simple but empirically important question could be raised here: Was this way of description an exceptional case, even as unaccepted in Warring States Period at that time? If then, the Rongchengshi could not but help being evaluated merely as a buried historical texts, without any influence on the ancient Chinese, along with its author. The Chu bamboo slips Tangyu zhi dao唐虞之道 from Guodian Chujian郭店 excavated in 1993, however, has a very similar content to the Rongchengshi in relevance to the historical existence of the ritual of resignation. From the sentence, expressed in Tangyu zhi dao, that "the sudden rise of 'Six Emperors'六帝 was due to the practice of resignation like the period of Yao-Shun", it could be easily presumed that the 'Six Emperors' was closely connected to the 'Nine Emperors' and maybe the more at that time. Comparing with the related extant literary texts and the excavated materials in a vigorous way, in this paper, I explore four significant questions from a more critical stand to the conventional studies. First of all, I explicate the distinctiveness of the Rongchengshi as an academically very precious materials. Secondly, and closely related to the above, I evaluate its status or significance in the history of the Chinese ancient thoughts. And thirdly, I make an endeavor to trace back to the date of its transcription. Finally, and the most crucially, I attempt to show what Schools it was originated from and what connections it had with the Schools in the acient China. In sum, some concluding remarks, having somewhat insightful and significant implications for the further studies in these issues, could be drawn from my exploration. Viewing from the historical perspective of thoughts, at first, the legend of Ancient Dynasty's Succession before Yao-Shun Era in the Rongchengshi had some interactions directly and closely with Zhangzi莊子, Muzi墨子, Guanzi管子, Xunzi荀子 and Tangyu zhi dao. Also in doing search for the unification in a transitional epoch from the late to the end of the Warring States period, the political stand of Shi士 and Ke客 was reflected in it as well as in the Tangyu zhi dao because they actively wanted to suggest the most appropriate model of the Emperor or the idealistic succession process and political realms.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.29-54
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• 2012

Recently, as film has been admitted as the artistic merit and higher value-added business, the past studies on film have been lively carried on various fields. Especially, the film business is thought to be value-added business and has explored the causes of influencing spectators. However, there are no researches enough to explain what induces the choice and diffusion of the film. The film is not only hedonic products but also typical example of experiential products. So how to process film formation plays important roles in explaining the procedures of forming preference on the film and the movies spread more widely. But the great part of study of films has been concentrated on exploring hedonic factors of influencing spectator's choice. Until now there is not enough study for the relationship between experiential information processing and film preference. To explain film's preference, our study focuses on preference fluency and processing fluency that can provide an insight for our question about the relationship. In this article, to explain the procedures of processing experiential information and forming preference on the film, our study focuses on finding the relationship between film's processing fluency and film's preference fluency and explores the factors that affect film's processing fluency. To achieve the goal of this study, we distinguish factors of film's conceptual fluency from factors of film's perceptual fluency and explore the paths from the factors to film's preference fluency. The factors which have effects on perceptual fluency are hypothesized to be distinction of image expression, distinction of sound expression, correspondence between actors' image and their role. The factors which have effect on conceptual fluency are supposed to be well-organized story, suitability of lines expression. The experiments in which students were sampled at 'C' university were conducted in 2010 (december). Data collection was proceeded through questionnaires. We test the hypothesized model by using structural equation modeling(Amos 17.0). The fit indices for the model are as follows : x²=416.266(df=213, p=0.00), GFI=0.855, AGFI=0.812, RMSEA =0.069, IFI=O.925, CFI=0.920, TLI=0.905. According to the guidelines, there is evidence that our measurement model fits data. The results of empirical study are as follows. The path from film's perceptual fluency to film's preference fluency is supported(estimate: 0.223, C.R: 2.641). The path from film's conceptual fluency to film's preference fluency is supported(estimate: 0.397, C.R: 4.863). The path from distinction of image expression to film's perceptual fluency is not supported(estimate: 0.113, C.R: 1.665). The path from distinction of sound expression to film's perceptual fluency is supported (estimate: 0.190, C.R: 2.042). The path from correspondence between actors' image and their role to film's perceptual fluency is supported(estimate: 0.686, C.R: 5.566). The path from well-organized story to film's conceptual fluency is supported(estimate: 0.396, C.R: 4.023). The path from suitability of lines expression to film's conceptual fluency is supported(estimate: 0.536, C.R: 5.441). Concludingly, our study explored the influencing factors of film's processing fluency inducing film's Preference fluency. First, film's perceptual fluency and film's conceptual fluency have positive effects on film's preference fluency. Second, distinction of image expression is not significant on film's perceptual fluency, but distinction of sound expression and image's correspondence of actors' image and their role have positive effects on film's perceptual fluency. Lastly, well-organized story and suitability of lines expression have positive effects on film's conceptual fluency.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.53-76
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• 2005

With rapid technological and market change, new product development (NPD) complexity is a significant issue that organizations continually face in their development projects. There are numerous factors, which cause development projects to become increasingly costly & complex. A product is more likely to be successfully developed and marketed when the complexity inherent in NPD projects is clearly understood and carefully managed. Based upon the previous studies, this study examines the nature and importance of complexity in developing new products and then identifies several issues in managing complexity. Issues considered include: definition of complexity : consequences of complexity; and methods for managing complexity in NPD projects. To achieve high performance in managing complexity in development projects, these issues need to be addressed, for example: A. Complexity inherent in NPD projects is multi-faceted and multidimensional. What factors need to be considered in defining and/or measuring complexity in a development project? For example, is it sufficient if complexity is defined only from a technological perspective, or is it more desirable to consider the entire array of complexity sources which NPD teams with different functions (e.g., marketing, R&D, manufacturing, etc.) face in the development process? Moreover, is it sufficient if complexity is measured only once during a development project, or is it more effective and useful to trace complexity changes over the entire development life cycle? B. Complexity inherent in a project can have negative as well as positive influences on NPD performance. Thus, which complexity impacts are usually considered negative and which are positive? Project complexity also can affect the entire organization. Any complexity could be better assessed in broader and longer perspective. What are some ways in which the long-term impact of complexity on an organization can be assessed and managed? C. Based upon previous studies, several approaches for managing complexity are derived. What are the weaknesses & strengths of each approach? Is there a desirable hierarchy or order among these approaches when more than one approach is used? Are there differences in the outcomes according to industry and product types (incremental or radical)? Answers to these and other questions can help organizations effectively manage the complexity inherent in most development projects. Complexity is worthy of additional attention from researchers and practitioners alike. Large-scale empirical investigations, jointly conducted by researchers and practitioners, will help gain useful insights into understanding and managing complexity. Those organizations that can accurately identify, assess, and manage the complexity inherent in projects are likely to gain important competitive advantages.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.1-24
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• 2010

Typically, marketing literature on innovation diffusion has focused on the pre-adoption process and only a few studies explicitly examined consumers' post-adoption behavior of innovative mobile services. Besides, prior use diffusion research has considered the variables that determine the consumers' initial adoption in explaining the post adoption usage behavior. However, behavioral sciences and individual psychology suggest that social influences are a potentially important determinant of usage behavior as well. The purpose of this study is to investigate into the effects of network factor and brand identification as social influences on the consumers' use diffusion or continued usage intention of a mobile service. Network factor designates consumer perception of the usefulness of a network, which embraces the concept of network externality and that of critical mass. Brand identification captures distinct aspects of social influence on technology acceptance that is not captured by subjective norm in situations where the technology use is voluntary. Additionally, this study explores the effect of the use diffusion on the brand switching intention, a generally unexplored form of post-adoption behavior. There are only a few empirical studies in the literature addressing the issue of IT user switching. In this study, the use diffusion comprises of rate of use and variety of use. The research hypotheses are as follows; H1. Network factor will have a positive influence on the rate of use of mobile services. H2. Network factor will have a positive influence on variety of use of mobile services. H3. Network factor will have a positive influence on continued usage intention. H4. Brand identification will have a positive influence on the rate of use. H5. Brand identification will have a positive influence on variety of use. H6. Brand identification will have a positive influence on continued usage intention. H7. Rate of use of mobile services are positively related to continued usage intention. H8. Variety of Use of mobile services are positively related to continued usage intention. H9. Rate of use of mobile services are negatively related to brand switching intention. H10. Variety of Use of mobile services are negatively related to brand switching intention. With the assistance of a marketing service company, a total of 1023 questionnaires from an online survey were collected. The survey was conducted only on those who have received or given a mobile service called "Gifticon". Those who answered insincerely were excluded from the analysis, so we had 936 observations available for a further stage of data analysis. We used structural equation modeling and overall fit was good enough (CFI=0.933, TLI=0.903, RMSEA=0.081). The results show that network factor and brand identification significantly increase the rate of use. But only brand identification increases variety of use. Also, network factor, brand identification and the use diffusion are positively related to continued usage intention. But the hypotheses that the use diffusion are positively related to brand switching intention were rejected. This result implies that continued usage intention cannot guarantee reducing brand switching intention.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.209-231
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• 2011

Internet is having strong impact on the consumer's decision making process. Information search has been done actively through internet today. The online reviews can be crucial information cue to evaluate the alternarive products. The online WOM(Word-Of-Mouth) effect depends on the characteristics of information sender, receiver, and WOM. This study is to examine the influence of the online word of mouth on the consumer purchase intention and the moderating role of product involvement, consumer regulatory focus and self-efficacy. Positive customer reviews on the products influence the purchase intention positively and negative customer reviews influence it negatively. Moderating role of involvement in the causal relation between the valence of online reviews and purchase intention is tested. In case of positive WOM, it is predicted that purchase intention for high involvement products is higher than that of low involvement. In case of negative WOM, purchase intention for high involvement product is lower than that of low involvement product. And this study invetigate the moderating role of regulatory focus. In case of positive WOM, it is predicted that promotion focus oriented consumers have higher purchase intention than prevention focus oriented consumers. In case of negative WOM, prediction is that prevention focus oriented consumers have lower purchase intention than promotion focus oriented consumers. Then we examine the moderating role of self efficacy in the causal relation between the valence of online reviews and purchase intention. In case of positive WOM, it is predicted that consumers with low self efficacy have higher purchase intention than consumers with high self efficacy. In case of negative WOM, it is predicted that consumers with low self efficacy have lower purchase intention than consumers with high self efficacy. Emprical results support our prediction and four hypotheses derived from our conceptual framework are all accepted. This study suggest that the level of product involvement, consumer regulatory focus and the level of self-efficacy influence the consumer responses of the valence of online reviews. Therefore marketers need to manage online reviews based on the level of product involvement, regulatory focus orientation and the level of self-efficacy of target consumers.

• Korean small business review
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-39
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• 2017

The first generation of the business that had been founded in 1960~1970s faces the situation to consider the succession of the family business developed by devotion of their whole lives in the critical timing to the next generation. In the process of selecting the party of family business succession, it is required to consider a variety of succession types including smooth transfer to the other family member or the employee of the company, selling the company, or hiring external specialist. Foreign countries acknowledge the importance of the succession in the family owned company to perform multiple studies on the influential factors to the succession, distinction, and types of family business succession; and they utilize the results for the related policy development and the support of family owned business succession. However, few studies have been conducted on the succession of the domestic family owned business and majority of them are related to the types of succession. Considering its share and influential power in the domestic economy, it is necessary to develop the guideline and the policies to solve many issues on the succession of the family owned business by systemic studies. Hence, the impact of the main characteristics in the family owned business on the types of its succession was analyzed in this study focusing on five domains of Socioemtional Wealth (SEW) in view of Behavioral Agency Theory by Gomez-Mejia et al. (2007) using the data from 540 family owned small-to-medium sized businesses so as to analyze the issues on their business succession. Upon the empirical analysis results, it was confirmed that they were influenced to the selection of succession type by family succession > internal employee succession > external succession, for the variables of social contribution which were non-financial characteristics, internal employee succession > family succession > external succession for the intellectual properties, and family succession > external succession for the management participation of the family. The distinction of social contribution were influenced the most to the selection of the succession types. Financial factors, business performance, and R&D investment variables were not significantly influenced to their selection of the succession types. In case of simultaneous management, the family succession rate was high and it showed the control effect to strengthen selecting family owned business with R&D investment, social contribution, and company history variables. The behavioral agency theory used in this study was confirmed with high explanation power on the family owned business succession. The family owned business showed the tendency to maintain SEW, and non-financial factors such as accumulated know-how and social contribution based on the long term history were significantly affected to the succession in the small-to-medium sized family owned businesses, unlike general large sized listed companies. The results of this study are expected to be helpful practically for the succession of the family owned business and to suggest the guideline for the development of governmental policy.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.471-480
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• 2023

The Korean construction order volume in South Korea grew significantly from 91.3 trillion won in public orders in 2013 to a total of 212 trillion won in 2021, particularly in the private sector. As the size of the domestic and overseas markets grew, the scale and complexity of EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) projects increased, and risk management of project management and ITB (Invitation to Bid) documents became a critical issue. The time granted to actual construction companies in the bidding process following the EPC project award is not only limited, but also extremely challenging to review all the risk terms in the ITB document due to manpower and cost issues. Previous research attempted to categorize the risk terms in EPC contract documents and detect them based on AI, but there were limitations to practical use due to problems related to data, such as the limit of labeled data utilization and class imbalance. Therefore, this study aims to develop an AI model that can categorize the contract terms based on the FIDIC Yellow 2017(Federation Internationale Des Ingenieurs-Conseils Contract terms) standard in detail, rather than defining and classifying risk terms like previous research. A multi-text classification function is necessary because the contract terms that need to be reviewed in detail may vary depending on the scale and type of the project. To enhance the performance of the multi-text classification model, we developed the ELECTRA PLM (Pre-trained Language Model) capable of efficiently learning the context of text data from the pre-training stage, and conducted a four-step experiment to validate the performance of the model. As a result, the ensemble version of the self-developed ITB-ELECTRA model and Legal-BERT achieved the best performance with a weighted average F1-Score of 76% in the classification of 57 contract terms.

• Therapeutic Science for Rehabilitation
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.9-22
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• 2023

The Lifestyle-DEPER (Decision, Execution, Personal Factors, Environment, Resources) model explains lifestyle formation. Lifestyles are shaped through the decision, execution, and habituation stages. Factors influencing the establishment of a lifestyle are categorized as environmental, resource, and personal. The environment encompasses our surroundings and social, physical, cultural, and virtual environments. Resources refer to what individuals possess, such as health, time, economic, and social resources. Personal factors include competencies, needs, and values. At the lifestyle establishment stage, each of these factors influences a different stage. These collective processes are referred to as events, encompassing both personal and social events. Health-related lifestyle factors include physical activity, nutrition, social relationships, and occupational participation. These are the goals of lifestyle intervention. The intervention strategy based on the Lifestyle-DEPER model, called KEEP (Knowledge, Evaluation, Experience, Plan), is a comprehensive approach to promoting a healthy lifestyle by considering lifestyle formation stages and their influencing factors. This study introduces the Lifestyle-DEPER model and presents a lifestyle intervention strategy (KEEP) to promote health. Further research is required to validate the practicality of the model after applying interventions based on the lifestyle construction model.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.464-471
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• 2023

In this paper, we propose a method to reduce age distortion in facial expression image generation using StyleGAN Encoder. The facial expression image generation process first creates a face image using StyleGAN Encoder, and changes the expression by applying the learned boundary to the latent vector using SVM. However, when learning the boundary of a smiling expression, age distortion occurs due to changes in facial expression. The smile boundary created in SVM learning for smiling expressions includes wrinkles caused by changes in facial expressions as learning elements, and it is determined that age characteristics were also learned. To solve this problem, the proposed method calculates the correlation coefficient between the smile boundary and the age boundary and uses this to introduce a method of adjusting the age boundary at the smile boundary in proportion to the correlation coefficient. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, the results of an experiment using the FFHQ dataset, a publicly available standard face dataset, and measuring the FID score are as follows. In the smile image, compared to the existing method, the FID score of the smile image generated by the ground truth and the proposed method was improved by about 0.46. In addition, compared to the existing method in the smile image, the FID score of the image generated by StyleGAN Encoder and the smile image generated by the proposed method improved by about 1.031. In non-smile images, compared to the existing method, the FID score of the non-smile image generated by the ground truth and the method proposed in this paper was improved by about 2.25. In addition, compared to the existing method in non-smile images, it was confirmed that the FID score of the image generated by StyleGAN Encoder and the non-smile image generated by the proposed method improved by about 1.908. Meanwhile, as a result of estimating the age of each generated facial expression image and measuring the estimated age and MSE of the image generated with StyleGAN Encoder, compared to the existing method, the proposed method has an average age of about 1.5 in smile images and about 1.63 in non-smile images. Performance was improved, proving the effectiveness of the proposed method.