Mulheres em ciência e tecnologia: ascensão limitada

In contemporary times, women can choose freely to enter any professional field. Along the way they come across stumbling blocks that make their progress difficult. Most of these difficulties are not gender-specific, yet women encounter them more consistently than do men. It is remarkably true for the areas of Science and Technology. However, it is not straightforward to evaluate and to obtain an accurate measure of the effects of gender bias. The factors and consequences associated with the phenomena are multiple, with many shades of regionalism as we look at different countries. Despite of the absence of detailed studies regarding the situation in Brazil, it seems unlikely we would be an exception to a world pattern. In this article, some causes as well as current actions around the world to fight gender bias are presented.

Performance evaluation of 3D computer vision techniques

This work presents the implementation and comparison of three different techniques of three-dimensional computer vision as follows: • Stereo vision - correlation between two 2D images • Sensorial fusion - use of different sensors: camera 2D + ultrasound sensor (1D); • Structured light The computer vision techniques herein presented took into consideration the following characteristics: • Computational effort ( elapsed time for obtain the 3D information); • Influence of environmental conditions (noise due to a non uniform lighting, overlighting and shades); • The cost of the infrastructure for each technique; • Analysis of uncertainties, precision and accuracy. The option of using the Matlab software, version 5.1, for algorithm implementation of the three techniques was due to the simplicity of their commands, programming and debugging. Besides, this software is well known and used by the academic community, allowing the results of this work to be obtained and verified. Examples of three-dimensional vision applied to robotic assembling tasks ("pick-and-place") are presented.