Books about Pentland from Amazon.com

How can you know when someone is bluffing? Paying attention? Genuinely interested? The answer, writes Sandy Pentland in Honest Signals, is that subtle patterns in how we interact with other people reveal our attitudes toward them. These unconscious social signals are not just a back channel or a complement to our conscious language; they form a separate communication network. Biologically based "honest signaling," evolved from ancient primate signaling mechanisms, offers an unmatched window into our intentions, goals, and values. If we understand this ancient channel of communication, Pentland claims, we can accurately predict the outcomes of situations ranging from job interviews to first dates.

Pentland, an MIT professor, has used a specially designed digital sensor worn like an ID badge—a "sociometer"—to monitor and analyze the back-and-forth patterns of signaling among groups of people. He and his researchers found that this second channel of communication, revolving not around words but around social relations, profoundly influences major decisions in our lives—even though we are largely unaware of it. Pentland presents the scientific background necessary for understanding this form of communication, applies it to examples of group behavior in real organizations, and shows how by "reading" our social networks we can become more successful at pitching an idea, getting a job, or closing a deal. Using this "network intelligence" theory of social signaling, Pentland describes how we can harness the intelligence of our social network to become better managers, workers, and communicators..
Price: $14.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In June of 1950, North Korean troops swept across the 38th Parallel defeating both American and South Korean troops, but failing to drive them into the sea. An amphibious landing at Inchon reversed the tide, and led to U.S. forces moving into North Korea soon reaching the border of Manchuria. Whereupon Chinese armies crushed the American Eighth Army, pushing it back to the Parallel. Two years of battle ensued with the Americans enjoying some success though, ultimately, the armistice resulted in the two sides in positions they had occupied at the beginning of the conflict.

Key to America’s ability to match Chinese and North Korean forces was control of the sky. And key to this airpower was the F-86 Sabre which, with well-trained pilots, controlled the airspace above the Korean peninsula taking on, and defeating, Russian-built MiG-15s flown by North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet pilots. To Begin Again tells the story of one of these aviators. Colonel Benjamin McGrath, a Georgetown University history professor, is recalled to the Air Force and goes to Korea, commanding a special detachment of F-86s to engage the MiGs at 30,000 feet above the Yalu River. The novel relates his combat experiences, his romance with one of his students, his friendship with a Jesuit colleague at Georgetown, and his involvement with a young American schoolteacher in Japan..
Price: $16.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Selections from nearly thirty years of teachings by one of the principal students of Gurdjieff

Exchanges Within concentrates on one main question: How do we find within ourselves what we have lost-our reality, wholeness, and significance-as the human kind of being in the universe?

Through the intensity of his own search, John Pentland radiated the help necessary for group members again and again to discover and try to express where they actually are in the process of understanding and in the movement toward "being." The "exchanges" in Exchanges Within provide a glimpse into the dynamics of a living teaching and reflect genuine efforts toward the discovery and practice of meaningful living in the face of forces that drain human life of the sacred..
Price: $5.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A revolutionary commercial propeller transport, the Lockheed Constellation burst on the aviation scene in the early 1940s. Unheralded for the most part due to wartime secrecy, it finally entered commercial service in 1946, and promptly set new standards for speed, range, reliability and passenger comfort.

The "Connie," as it was affectionately known, pioneered new flight paths in many parts of the globe. Connies ultimately flew commercially for more than thirty years, and underwent countless modifications and upgrades during that time. They continued to be utilized by the military as well; in fact, Connies were involved in a number of endeavors that remain shrouded in secrecy to this day.

This, then, is the story of a remarkable and distinctive airplane. It is also the story of the people who made the Constellation great, including aviation legends like Howard Hughes and Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. Most importantly, however, it is a story that sheds light on the dynamics of technology, politics and society over the course of four decades..
Price: $24.01 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Elizabeth Ann Duncan was a future daughter-in-law’s worst nightmare Filled with deep-rooted instability, jealousy and obsession toward her son Frank, an obsession that far surpassed normal motherly love, Ms. Duncan, known to the world as "Ma Duncan," planned the murder of her pregnant daughter in law during the 1950’s.

Detailing this heinous crime, Jim Barrett delves into Elizabeth Duncan’s turbulent past, reflecting on her numerous marriages, financial fraud, suicidal tendencies and above all, her unnatural obsession toward her son and her hatred toward her daughter-in-law. As the story is revealed, Barrett creates a work that is frighteningly captivating, emphasizing the fragility of the human mind and the extent to which one woman went to fulfill her obsession.

Written with vivid details chronicling this infamous murder, "Ma Duncan" not only uncovers gaps that have been left exposed in Elizabeth Duncan’s story, but incorporates interviews, pictures and Barrett’s own expertise in criminal law enforcement to complete the whole story..
Price: $25.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Computer vision is becoming increasingly important in several industrial applications such as automated inspection, robotic manipulations and autonomous vehicle guidance. These tasks are performed in a 3-D world and it is imperative to gather reliable information on the 3-D structure of the scene. This book is about passive techniques for depth recovery, where the scene is illuminated only by natural light as opposed to active methods where a special lighting device is used for scene illumination. Passive methods have a wider range of applicability and also correspond to the way humans infer 3-D structure from visual images. Of the several methods used for depth recovery: depth from stereo, structure from motion, shape from shading, structure from focus and depth from defocus, this book concentrates on the problem of recovering depth from defocused images. The book presents several new approaches for computing the depth of a scene when multiple, defocused images are given. Both deterministic and statistical approaches are covered. The book includes chapters on the basic theory of recovering depth from defocused images and a chapter providing the necessary mathematical background on space-frequency representations of signals, the calculus of variations, and Markov random fields, which are used in the subsequent chapters. This book should prove to be a valuable reference for researchers in computer vision interested in passive methods for depth recovery..
Price: $25.60 [Notify me when price goes down.]