Although the effort to involve women in engineering has risen in recent years with the creation of new initiatives and the promotion of inclusion in technical disciplines, the active participation of women in engineering professions is continuously lower than expected. While the need for engineers appears to be constantly increasing, women still do not fill most of this role and have a long way to go to even reach an equal split in the field. This gender gap has a significant impact how women in the STEM fields are perceived as well as their experiences in their education and careers. When it comes to Latin American women in IT, their contribution to science can go unnoticed, their participation levels in these fields are very low, and they often occupy lower-level positions than their male counterparts. These issues need to be discussed, and the experiences of women who work in the field must be shared. Latin American Women and Research Contributions to the IT Field highlights the important role of Latin American women in IT by collecting and disseminating their frontier-research contributions in order to provide more visibility and inspire greater participation of Latin American women within the major field of computer science. With chapters contributed by female authors from eight Latin American and Caribbean countries, the book provides a deep analysis of these women's trajectory paths to high quality theoretical and applied relevant research in computer science and IT. While highlighting areas such as inclusivity and STEM education, along with advancements and achievements in topics that include nonverbal interaction in virtual reality, fuzzy logic applications in education, and ant colony optimization, this book is ideal for professionals, academics, students, and researchers working in the fields of information technologies and computer science as well as those interested in gender and women's studies.

Virtual Reality is not real life. Instead it is life-like creations using computer-generated scenarios. Human behavior is replicated in virtual scenarios, where every detail is controlled by computers, and in situations that can be repeated under the same conditions. Based on technology and design, the user can experience presence. In the virtual world, users are embodied in avatars that represent them and are the means to interact with the virtual environment. Avatars are graphical models that behave on behalf of the human behind them. The user avatar is a proxy that also backs interaction with others, allowing computer-mediated interactions. Analyses directed to understand people's perceptions, personal and social behavior in computer mediated interactions, comprise a multidisciplinary area of study that involves, among others, computer science, psychology and sociology. In the last two decades a number of studies supported by Virtual Reality have been conducted to understand human behavior, in some cases the implications of the technology, or to reproduce artificial human behavior. This book presents a collection of studies from recognized researchers in the area.

Virtual Reality is not real life. Instead it is life-like creations using computer-generated scenarios. Human behavior is replicated in virtual scenarios, where every detail is controlled by computers, and in situations that can be repeated under the same conditions. Based on technology and design, the user can experience presence. In the virtual world, users are embodied in avatars that represent them and are the means to interact with the virtual environment. Avatars are graphical models that behave on behalf of the human behind them. The user avatar is a proxy that also backs interaction with others, allowing computer-mediated interactions. Analyses directed to understand people's perceptions, personal and social behavior in computer mediated interactions, comprise a multidisciplinary area of study that involves, among others, computer science, psychology and sociology. In the last two decades a number of studies supported by Virtual Reality have been conducted to understand human behavior, in some cases the implications of the technology, or to reproduce artificial human behavior. This book presents a collection of studies from recognized researchers in the area.

Although the effort to involve women in engineering has risen in recent years with the creation of new initiatives and the promotion of inclusion in technical disciplines, the active participation of women in engineering professions is continuously lower than expected. While the need for engineers appears to be constantly increasing, women still do not fill most of this role and have a long way to go to even reach an equal split in the field. This gender gap has a significant impact how women in the STEM fields are perceived as well as their experiences in their education and careers. When it comes to Latin American women in IT, their contribution to science can go unnoticed, their participation levels in these fields are very low, and they often occupy lower-level positions than their male counterparts. These issues need to be discussed, and the experiences of women who work in the field must be shared. Latin American Women and Research Contributions to the IT Field highlights the important role of Latin American women in IT by collecting and disseminating their frontier-research contributions in order to provide more visibility and inspire greater participation of Latin American women within the major field of computer science. With chapters contributed by female authors from eight Latin American and Caribbean countries, the book provides a deep analysis of these women's trajectory paths to high quality theoretical and applied relevant research in computer science and IT. While highlighting areas such as inclusivity and STEM education, along with advancements and achievements in topics that include nonverbal interaction in virtual reality, fuzzy logic applications in education, and ant colony optimization, this book is ideal for professionals, academics, students, and researchers working in the fields of information technologies and computer science as well as those interested in gender and women's studies.