We know from near-infrared imaging that bars are present in more than three quarters of local disk galaxies. Several studies have recently led to the conclusion that the fraction, as well as the properties, of bars in galaxies have not changed much from a redshift of about unity to the present day. In this paper, I will briefly review the results

The luminosity of the bulge was an important parameter in the early classification of galaxies. Later a large dispersion was found between the bulge-to-total (B/T) mass ratio and the morphological type, but B/T is still expected to have a fundamental role in the evolutionary picture of galaxies. For example the B/T, together with the shape

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We present the results of the analysis of near-infrared images of 14 southern hemisphere dark clouds taken at Las Campanas Observatory. All selected regions have associated IRAS sources. We based our study of the young stellar population associated with the clouds on our J, H and Ks calibrated images.

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