• Title/Summary/Keyword: Performance Quality

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Intestinal segment and vitamin D3 concentration affect gene expression levels of calcium and phosphorus transporters in broiler chickens

  • Jincheng Han;Lihua Wu;Xianliang Lv;Mengyuan Liu;Yan Zhang;Lei He;Junfang Hao;Li Xi;Hongxia Qu;Chuanxin Shi;Zhiqiang Li;Zhixiang Wang;Fei Tang;Yingying Qiao
    • Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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    • v.65 no.2
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    • pp.336-350
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    • 2023
  • Two experiments were conducted in this research. Experiment 1 investigated the spatial expression characteristics of calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) transporters in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum of 21-day-old broilers provided with adequate nutrient feed. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of dietary vitamin D3 (VD3) concentration (0, 125, 250, 500, 1,000, and 2,000 IU/kg) on growth performance, bone development, and gene expression levels of intestinal Ca and P transporters in 1-21-day-old broilers provided with the negative control diet without supplemental VD3. Results in experiment 1 showed that the mRNA levels of calcium-binding protein 28-kDa (CaBP-D28k), sodium-calcium exchanger 1 (NCX1), plasma membrane calcium ATPase 1b (PMCA1b), and IIb sodium-phosphate cotransporter (NaPi-IIb) were the highest in the broiler duodenum. By contrast, the mRNA levels of inorganic phosphate transporter 1 (PiT-1) and 2 (PiT-2) were the highest in the ileum. Results in experiment 2 showed that adding 125 IU/kg VD3 increased body weight gain (BWG), feed intake (FI), bone weight, and percentage and weight of Ca and P in the tibia and femur of 1-21-day-old broilers compared with the negative control diet (p < 0.05). The rise in dietary VD3 levels from 125 to 1,000 IU/kg further increased the BWG, FI, and weights of the bone, ash, Ca, and P (p < 0.05). No difference in growth rate and leg bone quality was noted in the broilers provided with 1,000 and 2,000 IU/kg VD3 (p > 0.05). Supplementation with 125-2,000 IU/kg VD3 increased the mRNA abundances of intestinal Ca and P transporters to varying degrees. The mRNA level of CaBP-D28k increased by 536, 1,161, and 28 folds in the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, respectively, after adding 1,000 IU/kg VD3. The mRNA levels of other Ca and P transporters (PMCA1b, NCX1, NaPi-IIb, PiT-1, and PiT-2) increased by 0.57-1.74 folds by adding 1,000-2,000 IU/kg VD3. These data suggest that intestinal Ca and P transporters are mainly expressed in the duodenum of broilers. Moreover, the addition of VD3 stimulates the two mineral transporter transcription in broiler intestines.

The Private-Initiated Park Development Project in Terms of Securing Publicity Operation Characteristics Analysis - Busan Metropolitan City as a Case - (공공성 확보측면에서 민간공원특례사업 운영특성분석 - "부산광역시를 사례로" -)

  • Gweon, Young-Dal;Park, Hyun-Bin;Kim, Dong-Pil
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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    • v.51 no.1
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    • pp.13-28
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    • 2023
  • This study examines the process of project promotion in Busan, which introduced the private participation-type consultative body for the first time in the country in the promotion stage of the private-initiated park development project, and introduced flexible application of the system and differentiated policy elements in the implementation process, and examines the operational characteristics and we tried to analyze performance, etc. As a result of the analysis, first, the preferred bidder was selected by introducing a mixed method in the project method, which is an independent project method that cannot be seen in other local governments. Second, by specifying guidelines considering the characteristics of each park and detailed guidelines such as the location, area, and maximum height of non-park facilities, criteria for establishing a rational development plan utilizing regional identity and the basis of evaluation standards were laid. Third, in the project process, transparency was secured through the delegation-type roundtable, in which the private sector performs the functions and roles of key actors, thereby preventing disputes such as suspicion of preferential treatment. Fourth, in order to improve the quality of park facilities to be donated and to secure design adequacy, after approval of the implementation plan, a general planner was introduced and construction project management (design stage) services were performed to promote efficient implementation and specialization of luxury parks in the region. As a result, the city of Busan carried out the project efficiently by conserving 5 parks from sunset, a park area of 2.25km2, and reducing land compensation and park construction costs by KRW 740 billion. Reinforcement of the public nature of the private-initiated park development project was suggested. However, due to the application of these systems and verification procedures, the project period is prolonged, and park services are delayed along with the financial burden on private operators.

Comparison of rainfall-runoff performance based on various gridded precipitation datasets in the Mekong River basin (메콩강 유역의 격자형 강수 자료에 의한 강우-유출 모의 성능 비교·분석)

  • Kim, Younghun;Le, Xuan-Hien;Jung, Sungho;Yeon, Minho;Lee, Gihae
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.56 no.2
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    • pp.75-89
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    • 2023
  • As the Mekong River basin is a nationally shared river, it is difficult to collect precipitation data, and the quantitative and qualitative quality of the data sets differs from country to country, which may increase the uncertainty of hydrological analysis results. Recently, with the development of remote sensing technology, it has become easier to obtain grid-based precipitation products(GPPs), and various hydrological analysis studies have been conducted in unmeasured or large watersheds using GPPs. In this study, rainfall-runoff simulation in the Mekong River basin was conducted using the SWAT model, which is a quasi-distribution model with three satellite GPPs (TRMM, GSMaP, PERSIANN-CDR) and two GPPs (APHRODITE, GPCC). Four water level stations, Luang Prabang, Pakse, Stung Treng, and Kratie, which are major outlets of the main Mekong River, were selected, and the parameters of the SWAT model were calibrated using APHRODITE as an observation value for the period from 2001 to 2011 and runoff simulations were verified for the period form 2012 to 2013. In addition, using the ConvAE, a convolutional neural network model, spatio-temporal correction of original satellite precipitation products was performed, and rainfall-runoff performances were compared before and after correction of satellite precipitation products. The original satellite precipitation products and GPCC showed a quantitatively under- or over-estimated or spatially very different pattern compared to APHPRODITE, whereas, in the case of satellite precipitation prodcuts corrected using ConvAE, spatial correlation was dramatically improved. In the case of runoff simulation, the runoff simulation results using the satellite precipitation products corrected by ConvAE for all the outlets have significantly improved accuracy than the runoff results using original satellite precipitation products. Therefore, the bias correction technique using the ConvAE technique presented in this study can be applied in various hydrological analysis for large watersheds where rain guage network is not dense.

Prediction of Key Variables Affecting NBA Playoffs Advancement: Focusing on 3 Points and Turnover Features (미국 프로농구(NBA)의 플레이오프 진출에 영향을 미치는 주요 변수 예측: 3점과 턴오버 속성을 중심으로)

  • An, Sehwan;Kim, Youngmin
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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    • v.28 no.1
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    • pp.263-286
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    • 2022
  • This study acquires NBA statistical information for a total of 32 years from 1990 to 2022 using web crawling, observes variables of interest through exploratory data analysis, and generates related derived variables. Unused variables were removed through a purification process on the input data, and correlation analysis, t-test, and ANOVA were performed on the remaining variables. For the variable of interest, the difference in the mean between the groups that advanced to the playoffs and did not advance to the playoffs was tested, and then to compensate for this, the average difference between the three groups (higher/middle/lower) based on ranking was reconfirmed. Of the input data, only this year's season data was used as a test set, and 5-fold cross-validation was performed by dividing the training set and the validation set for model training. The overfitting problem was solved by comparing the cross-validation result and the final analysis result using the test set to confirm that there was no difference in the performance matrix. Because the quality level of the raw data is high and the statistical assumptions are satisfied, most of the models showed good results despite the small data set. This study not only predicts NBA game results or classifies whether or not to advance to the playoffs using machine learning, but also examines whether the variables of interest are included in the major variables with high importance by understanding the importance of input attribute. Through the visualization of SHAP value, it was possible to overcome the limitation that could not be interpreted only with the result of feature importance, and to compensate for the lack of consistency in the importance calculation in the process of entering/removing variables. It was found that a number of variables related to three points and errors classified as subjects of interest in this study were included in the major variables affecting advancing to the playoffs in the NBA. Although this study is similar in that it includes topics such as match results, playoffs, and championship predictions, which have been dealt with in the existing sports data analysis field, and comparatively analyzed several machine learning models for analysis, there is a difference in that the interest features are set in advance and statistically verified, so that it is compared with the machine learning analysis result. Also, it was differentiated from existing studies by presenting explanatory visualization results using SHAP, one of the XAI models.

Development of Cloud Detection Method Considering Radiometric Characteristics of Satellite Imagery (위성영상의 방사적 특성을 고려한 구름 탐지 방법 개발)

  • Won-Woo Seo;Hongki Kang;Wansang Yoon;Pyung-Chae Lim;Sooahm Rhee;Taejung Kim
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.39 no.6_1
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    • pp.1211-1224
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    • 2023
  • Clouds cause many difficult problems in observing land surface phenomena using optical satellites, such as national land observation, disaster response, and change detection. In addition, the presence of clouds affects not only the image processing stage but also the final data quality, so it is necessary to identify and remove them. Therefore, in this study, we developed a new cloud detection technique that automatically performs a series of processes to search and extract the pixels closest to the spectral pattern of clouds in satellite images, select the optimal threshold, and produce a cloud mask based on the threshold. The cloud detection technique largely consists of three steps. In the first step, the process of converting the Digital Number (DN) unit image into top-of-atmosphere reflectance units was performed. In the second step, preprocessing such as Hue-Value-Saturation (HSV) transformation, triangle thresholding, and maximum likelihood classification was applied using the top of the atmosphere reflectance image, and the threshold for generating the initial cloud mask was determined for each image. In the third post-processing step, the noise included in the initial cloud mask created was removed and the cloud boundaries and interior were improved. As experimental data for cloud detection, CAS500-1 L2G images acquired in the Korean Peninsula from April to November, which show the diversity of spatial and seasonal distribution of clouds, were used. To verify the performance of the proposed method, the results generated by a simple thresholding method were compared. As a result of the experiment, compared to the existing method, the proposed method was able to detect clouds more accurately by considering the radiometric characteristics of each image through the preprocessing process. In addition, the results showed that the influence of bright objects (panel roofs, concrete roads, sand, etc.) other than cloud objects was minimized. The proposed method showed more than 30% improved results(F1-score) compared to the existing method but showed limitations in certain images containing snow.

Retrieval of Hourly Aerosol Optical Depth Using Top-of-Atmosphere Reflectance from GOCI-II and Machine Learning over South Korea (GOCI-II 대기상한 반사도와 기계학습을 이용한 남한 지역 시간별 에어로졸 광학 두께 산출)

  • Seyoung Yang;Hyunyoung Choi;Jungho Im
    • Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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    • v.39 no.5_3
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    • pp.933-948
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    • 2023
  • Atmospheric aerosols not only have adverse effects on human health but also exert direct and indirect impacts on the climate system. Consequently, it is imperative to comprehend the characteristics and spatiotemporal distribution of aerosols. Numerous research endeavors have been undertaken to monitor aerosols, predominantly through the retrieval of aerosol optical depth (AOD) via satellite-based observations. Nonetheless, this approach primarily relies on a look-up table-based inversion algorithm, characterized by computationally intensive operations and associated uncertainties. In this study, a novel high-resolution AOD direct retrieval algorithm, leveraging machine learning, was developed using top-of-atmosphere reflectance data derived from the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager-II (GOCI-II), in conjunction with their differences from the past 30-day minimum reflectance, and meteorological variables from numerical models. The Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM) technique was harnessed, and the resultant estimates underwent rigorous validation encompassing random, temporal, and spatial N-fold cross-validation (CV) using ground-based observation data from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) AOD. The three CV results consistently demonstrated robust performance, yielding R2=0.70-0.80, RMSE=0.08-0.09, and within the expected error (EE) of 75.2-85.1%. The Shapley Additive exPlanations(SHAP) analysis confirmed the substantial influence of reflectance-related variables on AOD estimation. A comprehensive examination of the spatiotemporal distribution of AOD in Seoul and Ulsan revealed that the developed LGBM model yielded results that are in close concordance with AERONET AOD over time, thereby confirming its suitability for AOD retrieval at high spatiotemporal resolution (i.e., hourly, 250 m). Furthermore, upon comparing data coverage, it was ascertained that the LGBM model enhanced data retrieval frequency by approximately 8.8% in comparison to the GOCI-II L2 AOD products, ameliorating issues associated with excessive masking over very illuminated surfaces that are often encountered in physics-based AOD retrieval processes.

Studies on Xylooligosaccharide Analysis Method Standardization using HPLC-UVD in Health Functional Food (건강기능식품에서 HPLC-UVD를 이용한 자일로올리고당 시험법의 표준화 연구)

  • Se-Yun Lee;Hee-Sun Jeong;Kyu-Heon Kim;Mi-Young Lee;Jung-Ho Choi;Jeong-Sun Ahn;Kwang-Il Kwon;Hye-Young Lee
    • Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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    • v.39 no.2
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    • pp.72-82
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    • 2024
  • This study aimed to develop a scientifically and systematically standardized xylooligosaccharide analytical method that can be applied to products with various formulations. The analysis method was conducted using HPLC with Cadenza C18 column, involving pre-column derivatization with 1-phenyl-3-methyl-5-pyrazoline (PMP) and UV detection at 254 nm. The xylooligosaccharide content was analyzed by converting xylooligosaccharide into xylose through acid hydrolysis. The pre-treated methods were compared and evaluated by varying sonication time, acid hydrolysis time, and concentration. Optimal equipment conditions were achieved with a mobile phase consisting of 20 mM potassium phosphate buffer (pH 6)-acetonitrile (78:22, v/v) through isocratic elution at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min (254 nm). Furthermore, we validated the advanced standardized analysis method to support the suitability of the proposed analytical procedure such as specificity, linearity, detection limits (LOD), quantitative limits (LOQ), accuracy, and precision. The standardized analysis method is now in use for monitoring relevant health-functional food products available in the market. Our results have demonstrated that the standardized analysis method is expected to enhance the reliability of quality control for healthy functional foods containing xylooligosaccharide.

Production of Lignan-Rich Eggs as Functional Food by Supplementing Schisandra chinensis By-Product in Laying Hens (사료에 오미자 가공부산물 분말의 첨가 급여가 계란의 리그난 함량에 미치는 영향)

  • Hye Mi Kang;Eun Ji Park;Sun Young Park;Dae Youn Hwang;Jong-Choon Lee;Myunghoo Kim;Young Whan Choi
    • Journal of Life Science
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    • v.34 no.1
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    • pp.18-27
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    • 2024
  • Laying hens are known to be able to 'bio-accumulate' the health-promoting ingredients of their diet into eggs. The purpose of this study was to characterize lignan-rich eggs as functional food fed with Schisandra fruit by-product (SCP). Experimental diets were formulated using yellow corn, rice bran, soybean meal, fish meal, meat bone meal, poultry meal, vitamin premix, mineral premix, CaCO3, and supplemented Schisandra chinensis by-product. This experiment conducted a completely randomized design with 5 treatments for 5 laying hens. Levels of SCP were fed control diet or each formulated diet containing 1%, 3%, 5% and 7% SCP powder. The weight of eggs and the lignan content in white and yolk of egg were investigated every 7 days. Egg production and egg weight were not affected by diet at less than 5% SCP in the diet, but were significantly reduced when the diet was supplemented with a high concentration of 7% SCP after 3 weeks. Yolks and white in eggs were analyzed by using a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to determine the lignans profile. Higher dietary SCP supplementation significantly increased gomisin N and schisandrin C in Acetonitrile (p<0.05). Gomisin N in egg white increased in a concentration-dependent manner, but shisandrin C not detected. These results indicated that the use of SCP powder in layering diets was effective in egg quality and for the production of lignans fortified eggs. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of Schisandra by-product with less than 5% can produce lignans-enrich eggs used as functional foods.

Deep Learning-based Fracture Mode Determination in Composite Laminates (복합 적층판의 딥러닝 기반 파괴 모드 결정)

  • Muhammad Muzammil Azad;Atta Ur Rehman Shah;M.N. Prabhakar;Heung Soo Kim
    • Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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    • v.37 no.4
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    • pp.225-232
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    • 2024
  • This study focuses on the determination of the fracture mode in composite laminates using deep learning. With the increase in the use of laminated composites in numerous engineering applications, the insurance of their integrity and performance is of paramount importance. However, owing to the complex nature of these materials, the identification of fracture modes is often a tedious and time-consuming task that requires critical domain knowledge. Therefore, to alleviate these issues, this study aims to utilize modern artificial intelligence technology to automate the fractographic analysis of laminated composites. To accomplish this goal, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of fractured tensile test specimens are obtained from laminated composites to showcase various fracture modes. These SEM images are then categorized based on numerous fracture modes, including fiber breakage, fiber pull-out, mix-mode fracture, matrix brittle fracture, and matrix ductile fracture. Next, the collective data for all classes are divided into train, test, and validation datasets. Two state-of-the-art, deep learning-based pre-trained models, namely, DenseNet and GoogleNet, are trained to learn the discriminative features for each fracture mode. The DenseNet models shows training and testing accuracies of 94.01% and 75.49%, respectively, whereas those of the GoogleNet model are 84.55% and 54.48%, respectively. The trained deep learning models are then validated on unseen validation datasets. This validation demonstrates that the DenseNet model, owing to its deeper architecture, can extract high-quality features, resulting in 84.44% validation accuracy. This value is 36.84% higher than that of the GoogleNet model. Hence, these results affirm that the DenseNet model is effective in performing fractographic analyses of laminated composites by predicting fracture modes with high precision.

An Empirical Study in Relationship between Franchisor's Leadership Behavior Style and Commitment by Focusing Moderating Effect of Franchisee's Self-efficacy (가맹본부의 리더십 행동유형과 가맹사업자의 관계결속에 관한 실증적 연구 - 가맹사업자의 자기효능감의 조절효과를 중심으로 -)

  • Yang, Hoe-Chang;Lee, Young-Chul
    • Journal of Distribution Research
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    • v.15 no.1
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    • pp.49-71
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    • 2010
  • Franchise businesses in South Korea have contributed to economic growth and job creation, and its growth potential remains very high. However, despite such virtues, domestic franchise businesses face many problems such as the instability of franchisor's business structure and weak financial conditions. To solve these problems, the government enacted legislation and strengthened franchise related laws. However, the strengthening of laws regulating franchisors had many side effects that interrupted the development of the franchise business. For example, legal regulations regarding franchisors have had the effect of suppressing the franchisor's leadership activities (e.g. activities such as the ability to advocate the franchisor's policies and strategies to the franchisees, in order to facilitate change and innovation). One of the main goals of the franchise business is to build cooperation between the franchisor and the franchisee for their combined success. However, franchisees can refuse to follow the franchisor's strategies because of the current state of franchise-related law and government policy. The purpose of this study to explore the effects of franchisor's leadership style on franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. We classified leadership styles according to the path-goal theory (House & Mitchell, 1974), and it was hypothesized and tested that the four leadership styles proposed by the path-goal theory (i.e. directive, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leadership) have different effects on franchisee's commitment. Another purpose of this study to explore the how the level of franchisee's self-efficacy influences both the franchisor's leadership style and franchisee's commitment in a franchise system. Results of the present study are expected to provide important theoretical and practical implications as to the role of franchisor's leadership style, as restricted by government regulations and the franchisee's self-efficacy, which could be needed to improve the quality of the long-term relationship between the franchisor and franchisee. Quoted by Northouse(2007), one problem regarding the investigation of leadership is that there are almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are people who have tried to define it. But despite the multitude of ways in which leadership has been conceptualized, the following components can be identified as central to the phenomenon: (a) leadership is a process, (b) leadership involves influence, (c) leadership occurs in a group context, and (d) leadership involves goal attainment. Based on these components, in this study leadership is defined as a process whereby franchisor's influences a group of franchisee' to achieve a common goal. Focusing on this definition, the path-goal theory is about how leaders motivate subordinates to accomplish designated goals. Drawing heavily from research on what motivates employees, path-goal theory first appeared in the leadership literature in the early 1970s in the works of Evans (1970), House (1971), House and Dessler (1974), and House and Mitchell (1974). The stated goal of this leadership theory is to enhance employee performance and employee satisfaction by focusing on employee motivation. In brief, path-goal theory is designed to explain how leaders can help subordinates along the path to their goals by selecting specific behaviors that are best suited to subordinates' needs and to the situation in which subordinates are working (Northouse, 2007). House & Mitchell(1974) predicted that although many different leadership behaviors could have been selected to be a part of path-goal theory, this approach has so far examined directive, supportive, participative, and achievement-oriented leadership behaviors. And they suggested that leaders may exhibit any or all of these four styles with various subordinates and in different situations. However, due to restrictive government regulations, franchisors are not in a position to change their leadership style to suit their circumstances. In addition, quoted by Northouse(2007), ssubordinate characteristics determine how a leader's behavior is interpreted by subordinates in a given work context. Many researchers have focused on subordinates' needs for affiliation, preferences for structure, desires for control, and self-perceived level of task ability. In this study, we have focused on the self-perceived level of task ability, namely, the franchisee's self-efficacy. According to Bandura (1977), self-efficacy is chiefly defined as the personal attitude of one's ability to accomplish concrete tasks. Therefore, it is not an indicator of one's actual abilities, but an opinion of the extent of how one can use that ability. Thus, the judgment of maintain franchisee's commitment depends on the situation (e.g., government regulation and policy and leadership style of franchisor) and how it affects one's ability to mobilize resources to deal with the task, so even if people possess the same ability, there may be differences in self-efficacy. Figure 1 illustrates the model investigated in this study. In this model, it was hypothesized that leadership styles would affect the franchisee's commitment, and self-efficacy would moderate the relationship between leadership style and franchisee's commitment. Theoretically, quoted by Northouse(2007), the path-goal approach suggests that leaders need to choose a leadership style that best fits the needs of subordinates and the work they are doing. According to House & Mitchell (1974), the theory predicts that a directive style of leadership is best in situations in which subordinates are dogmatic and authoritarian, the task demands are ambiguous, and the organizational rule and procedures are unclear. In these situations, franchisor's directive leadership complements the work by providing guidance and psychological structure for franchisees. For work that is structured, unsatisfying, or frustrating, path-goal theory suggests that leaders should use a supportive style. Franchisor's Supportive leadership offers a sense of human touch for franchisees engaged in mundane, mechanized activity. Franchisor's participative leadership is considered best when a task is ambiguous because participation gives greater clarity to how certain paths lead to certain goals; it helps subordinates learn what actions leads to what outcome. Furthermore, House & Mitchell(1974) predicts that achievement-oriented leadership is most effective in settings in which subordinates are required to perform ambiguous tasks. Marsh and O'Neill (1984) tested the idea that organizational members' anger and decline in performance is caused by deficiencies in their level of effort and found that self-efficacy promotes accomplishment, decreases stress and negative consequences like depression and emotional instability. Based on the extant empirical findings and theoretical reasoning, we posit positive and strong relationships between the franchisor's leadership styles and the franchisee's commitment. Furthermore, the level of franchisee's self-efficacy was thought to maintain their commitment. The questionnaires sent to participants consisted of the following measures; leadership style was assessed using a 20 item 7-point likert scale developed by Indvik (1985), self-efficacy was assessed using a 24 item 6-point likert scale developed by Bandura (1977), and commitment was assessed using a 6 item 5-point likert scale developed by Morgan & Hunt (1994). Questionnaires were distributed to Korean optical franchisees in Seoul. It took about 20 days to complete the data collection. A total number of 140 questionnaires were returned and complete data were available from 137 respondents. Results of multiple regression analyses testing the relationships between the each of the four styles of leadership shown by the franchisor as independent variables and franchisee's commitment as the dependent variable showed that the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.13, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.07, p<.001)were significant. However, when participants divided into high and low self-efficacy groups, results of multiple regression analyses showed that only the relationship between achievement-oriented leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.14, p<.001) was significant in the high self-efficacy group. In the low self-efficacy group, the relationship between supportive leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.17, p<.001),and the relationship between participative leadership style and commitment ($\beta$=.10, p<.001) were significant. The study focused on the franchisee's self-efficacy in order to explore the possibility that regulation, originally intended to protect the franchisee, may not be the most effective method to maintain the relationships in a franchise business. The key results of the data analysis regarding the moderating role of self-efficacy between leadership behavior style as proposed by path-goal and commitment theory were as follows. First, this study proposed that franchisor should apply the appropriate type of leadership behavior to strengthen the franchisees commitment because the results demonstrated that supportive and participative leadership styles by the franchisors have a positive influence on the franchisee's level of commitment. Second, it is desirable for franchisor to validate the franchisee's efforts, since the franchisee's characteristics such as self-efficacy had a substantial, positive effect on the franchisee's commitment as well as being a meaningful moderator between leadership and commitment. Third, the results as a whole imply that the government should provide institutional support, namely to put the franchisor in a position to clearly identify the characteristics of their franchisees and provide reasonable means to administer the franchisees to achieve the company's goal.

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