In the Western Australian agricultural region, an area of approximately 14 million hectares (70,000 square miles), widespread areas of native vegetation have been cleared and replaced with annual cropping systems, predominantly wheat. Only1.3 million hectares (10%) of small and scattered native vegetation remnants remain. By 2000 16% of land in the region was at risk from soil salinity and was largely unproductive for commercial agriculture. A new hydrological equilibrium affecting 33% of the Western Australian agricultural region is predicted to be reached between 2050 and 2300. The starting premise of this dissertation is that normal disciplinary science was adopted as the dominant intellectual influence on natural resource management policy and thus natural resource degradation was treated as a problem for science, extracted from its social, economic and historical contexts. The second premise of this dissertation is that natural resource problems are not isolated scientific or technical problems, and are exacerbated by human failure to predict the complex inter-relationships among the social, ecological and economic systems. This dissertation initially provides an analytical narrative on the Western Australian agricultural region between 1889 and 2003 (114 years) with the main finding being that in the years pre-1970 a development-driven Western Australian Government was responsible for extensive land clearing for agriculture, often contrary to scientific advice. In the 1980s and 1990s the severity and extent of soil salinity and the prognosis of future negative trends in other natural resource indicators caused a rapid proliferation and evolution of Federal and State policies designed to ‘solve the problem’. Nonetheless many natural resource problems remain intractable. The second part of the dissertation investigates the epistemology of the normal science paradigm as it was applied to natural resource management problems in the 20th century as a potentially contributing cause. The evolution of an alternative epistemology, post-normal science paradigm, is then examined for explicating our current understanding of ‘reality’. A research framework was constructed which defines the post-normal science paradigm; the systemic approach; the bodies of theory–organisational, ecology, resilience and system dynamics theory; the social-ecological system perspective; and the methods–resilience analysis and system dynamics. This framework provides a novel way in which to gain a greater understanding of the fundamental or root causes of natural resource management problems. Using the case study of the Western Australian agricultural region a dynamic model was constructed based on descriptive information. An examination of the historical events and processes of the Western Australian agricultural region reveals that over a 114-year history it has evolved through two interactions of the adaptive cycle. Further investigation reveals these two cycles were synchronous with the second and third economic long-wave cycles or Kondratiev Cycles, that show the behaviour over time of the evolution of modern industrial societies. The model suggests that the reasons for the dynamic behaviour of the Western Australian agricultural region lie in the interaction of the three production growth drivers of the international commodity system, which have resulted in a pathological system, the ‘Lock-in Trap’. Increased total commodity production, reinvestment and declining prices in real terms have tended to produce the unintended negative impacts of resource decline, environmental pollution and rural population decline. I suggest that the expansion of thresholds through the reinvestment in technology is a principle reason why there has not yet been a profound collapse of exploited renewable resources in the Western Australian agricultural region. Regional natural resource management strategies will need to take account of not only spatial cross-scale issues, in particular the linkages between the individual farmer and the international commodity system, but also the temporal variables, in particular the slowly emerging changes in ecological/physical variables, such as the hydrological cycle. This research can help to provide the information and heuristic metaphors to encourage natural resource policy makers to take long-term and whole system perspectives. It includes a powerful set of tools for communicating dynamic processes in an integrated method to inform policy and management decisions. The ideas in this interdisciplinary research are essential for making science relevant within a social and ecological context.

Esta é uma pesquisa quali-quantitativa que tem por base teórico-epistemológica o Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (ISD) e a Teoria da Complexidade, uma vez que ambas as teorias contribuem para a compreensão da ação de linguagem, enquanto Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (SAC), de sujeitos engajados em atividades de produção de textos. Dessa forma, na medida em que o desempenho de sujeitos de diferentes níveis de ensino tem sido apontado como problemático por órgãos de pesquisa em Educação, no que se refere às práticas de leitura e de produção textual, considerou-se relevante investigar a maneira como uma ferramenta digital de mineração de dados, neste caso, a ferramenta Sobek, pode evidenciar níveis de complexidade entre o conteúdo de um texto-referência e o texto-produzido. O objeto de estudo desta tese, portanto, é o recorte propiciado pela ferramenta Sobek, que ocorre por meio da geração de um grafo composto por palavras (signos) recorrentes nos textos, com vistas a sustentar a construção de uma perspectiva inter(trans)disciplinar, referente aos modos de extrair e interpretar o conteúdo desses a partir de níveis de complexidade. O corpus de pesquisa foi composto por 2 turmas de ensino superior, em nível de graduação, envolvendo a coleta de 34 textos. Esses textos foram submetidos à técnica de mineração de dados, com a utilização de uma nova versão da ferramenta, desenvolvida neste estudo, a qual permitiu importar e comparar, de forma automatizada, o conteúdo de dois textos, sendo possível gerar 3 tipos de grafos: de união, de intersecção e de diferença. O resultado da análise de dados indicou um padrão de estabilidade da ação de linguagem dos sujeitos, em relação ao conteúdo do texto-referência, sem apresentar significativa variabilidade de conceitos. Para além de uma nova versão da ferramenta, outra contribuição desta pesquisa foi a de sugerir que níveis de complexidade em caráter de estabilidade e variabilidade podem ser associados a zonas de desenvolvimento humano. / This is a quali-quantitative research whose theoretical and epistemological basis are the Interactionism Sociodiscursivo (ISD) and the Complexity Theory, once both theories contribute to the understanding of the language action, as Complex Adaptive System (CAS), of individuals engaged in text production activities. Thus, as the individuals‟ performance in different levels of education has been identified as problematic by Research Institutes of Education, related to reading and textual production practices, it was considered relevant to investigate the way a digital data mining tool, in this case, Sobek, may reveal levels of complexity between the content of a reference-text and a produced-text. The object of study of this thesis, so is the cut provided by Sobek tool, which occurs through the generation of a graph composed of words (signs) recurring in the texts, in order to support the construction of an inter(trans) disciplinary perspective, referring to ways to extract and interpret the content of the texts. The research corpus was composed of 2 classes of higher education at the undergraduate level, involving the collection of 34 texts. These texts were submitted to data mining technique, with the use of a new version of the tool, developed in this study, which allowed to import and compare, automatically, the contents of two texts automatically, been possible to generate 3 types of graphs: union, intersection and difference. The result of data analysis indicated a recurring pattern in the analyzed texts, which was to maintain the language action as stable as possible to the content of the reference-text, without presenting significant variability of concepts. In addition to the new version of the tool, another contribution of this research was to suggest that the levels of complexity in stability and variability may be associated with human development zones.

In recent years, human decision-making has led to significant landscape impacts in the western United States. Specifically, migratory wildlife populations have increasingly been impacted by rural urban development and energy resource development. This research presents the application of agent-based modeling to explore how such impacts influence the characteristics of migratory animal movement, focusing on mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) in Western Wyoming. This study utilizes complex adaptive systems and agent-based modeling frameworks to increase understanding of migratory patterns in a changing landscape and explores thresholds of interference to migration patterns due to increased habitat degradation and fragmentation. The agent-based model utilizes GPS-collar data to examine how individual processes lead to population-level patterns of movement and adaptation. The assessment incorporates elements from both human and natural systems to explore potential future scenarios for human development in the natural landscape and incorporates adaptive behaviors, as well as animal-movement ecology, in changing landscapes.

Sistemas de recomendação foram propostos no início da década de 1990 com o objetivo de auxiliar seus usuários a lidar com a sobrecarga cognitiva criada com o advento da internet e o aumento constante de documentos. De lá para cá tais sistemas passaram a assumir vários outros papéis, tais como “auxiliar usuários a explorar”, “melhorar a tomada de decisão”, ou até mesmo “entreter”. Para atingir tais novos objetivos, o sistema necessita olhar para características do usuário que auxiliem no entendimento da tarefa desempenhada pelo usuário e como a recomendação pode auxiliar tal tarefa. Nesse sentido, propõe-se nessa tese uma integração entre estratégias de recomendação e de adaptação para criar um novo processo de recomendação adaptativa. É mostrado que tal integração pode melhorar a acurácia da recomendação, e dar bons resultados na retenção de usuários, e na interação destes com os sistemas. Para validar a abordagem, é implementado um protótipo para recomendação de filmes a serem utilizados em sala de aula. São também coletadas estatísticas de 78 usuários que participaram do experimento de avaliação da abordagem. / Recommender systems were proposed in early 90’s with the goal to help users deal with cognitive overload brought by the internet and the constant increase of documents. From there to now such systems have assumed many other roles like “help users to explore”, “improve decision making”, or even “entertain”. To accomplish such new goals, the system needs to look to user characteristics that help in understand what the user task is and how to adapt the recommendation to support such task. In this direction, it is proposed in this thesis an integration between recommender and adaptive strategies into a new process of adaptive recommendation. It is shown that such integration can improve recommendation accuracy and give good results to user retention, and interaction with the systems. To validate the approach, it is implemented a prototype to recommend movies to be used in a classroom. It is also collected some statistics about the 78 users who have participated of the experiment for evaluation of the new approach.

abstract: This dissertation explores how practices and interactions of actors at different scales structure social networks and lead to the emergence of social complexity in middle range societies. To investigate this process, I apply a complex adaptive systems approach and a methodology that combines network science with analytical tools from economics to the three sub-periods of the Prehistoric Bronze Age (The Philia Phase, PreBA 1 and PreBA 2) on Cyprus, a transformational period marked by social and economic changes evident in the material record. Using proxy data representative of three kinds of social interactions or facets of social complexity, the control of labor, participation in trade networks, and access to resources, at three scales, the community, region and whole island, my analysis demonstrates the variability in and non-linear trajectory for the emergence of social complexity in middle range society. The results of this research indicate that complexity emerges at different scales, and times in different places, and only in some facets of complexity. Cycles of emergence are apparent within the sub-periods of the PreBA, but a linear trajectory of increasing social complexity is not evident through the period. Further, this research challenges the long-held notion that Cyprus' involvement in the international metal trade lead to the emergence of complexity. Instead, I argue based on the results presented here, that the emergence of complexity is heavily influenced by endogenous processes, particularly the social interactions that limited participation in an on-island exchange system that flourished on the island during the Philia Phase, disintegrated along the North Coast during the PreBA 1 and was rebuilt across the island by the end of the period. Thus, the variation seen in the emergence of social complexity on Cyprus during the PreBA occurred as the result of a bottom-up process in which the complex and unequal interactions and relationships between social actors structured and restructured social networks across scales differently over time and space. These results speak more broadly about the variability of middle range societies and the varying conditions under which social complexity can emerge and add to our understanding of this phenomenon. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2017

Cette thèse contribue à l'étude théorique et a l'application de la vérification et de la synthèse quantitative. Nous étudions les stratégies qui optimisent la fraction de deux récompenses des MDPs. L'objectif est la synthèse de régulateurs efficaces dans des environnements probabilistes. Premièrement nous montrons que les stratégies déterministes et sans mémoire sont suffisants. Sur la base de ces résultats, nous proposons trois algorithmes pour traiter des modèles explicitement encodées. Notre évaluation de ces algorithmes montre que l'un de ces derniers est plus rapide que les autres. Par la suite nous proposons et mettons en place une variante symbolique basé sur les diagrammes de décision binaire.Deuxièmement, nous étudions le problème de réparation des programmes d'un point de vue quantitatif. Cela conduit à une reformulation de la réparation d'un log: que seules les exécutions fautives du programme soient modifiées. Nous étudions les limites de cette approche et montrons comment nous pouvons assouplir cette nouvelle exigence. Nous concevons et mettons en œuvre un algorithme pour trouver automatiquement des réparations, et montrons qu'il améliore les modifications apportées aux programmes. Troisièmement, nous étudions une nouvelle approche au framework pour la vérification et synthèse quantitative. La vérification et la synthèse fonctionnent en tandem pour analyser la qualité d'un contrôleur en ce qui concerne, par exemple , de robustesse contre des erreurs de modélisation. Nous considérons également la possibilité d'approximer la courbure de Pareto, qui appataît de la combinaison du modèle avec de multiples récompenses. Cela nous permet à la fois d'étudier les compromis inhérents au système et de choisir une configuration adéquate. Nous appliquons notre framework aux plusieurs études de cas. La majorité de l'étude de cas est concernée par un système anti-collision embarqué (ACAS X). Nous utilisons notre framework pour aider à analyser l'espace de conception du système et de valider le contrôleur en cours d'investigation par la FAA. En particulier, nous contribuons l'analyse par PCTL et stochastic model checking. / This thesis contributes to the theoretical study and application of quantitative verification and synthesis. We first study strategies that optimize the ratio of two rewards in MDPs. The goal is the synthesis of efficient controllers in probabilistic environments. We prove that deterministic and memoryless strategies are sufficient. Based on these results we suggest 3 algorithms to treat explicitly encoded models. Our evaluation of these algorithms shows that one of these is clearly faster than the others. To extend its scope, we propose and implement a symbolic variant based on binary decision diagrams, and show that it cope with millions of states. Second, we study the problem of program repair from a quantitative perspective. This leads to a reformulation of program repair with the requirement that only faulty runs of the program be changed. We study the limitations of this approach and show how we can relax the new requirement. We devise and implement an algorithm to automatically find repairs, and show that it improves the changes made to programs.Third, we study a novel approach to a quantitative verification and synthesis framework. In this, verification and synthesis work in tandem to analyze the quality of a controller with respect to, e.g., robustness against modeling errors. We also include the possibility to approximate the Pareto curve that emerges from combining the model with multiple rewards. This allows us to both study the trade-offs inherent in the system and choose a configuration to our liking. We apply our framework to several case studies. The major case study is concerned with the currently proposed next generation airborne collision avoidance system (ACAS X). We use our framework to help analyze the design space of the system and to validate the controller as currently under investigation by the FAA. In particular, we contribute analysis via PCTL and stochastic model checking to add to the confidence in the controller.

Sistemas de recomendação foram propostos no início da década de 1990 com o objetivo de auxiliar seus usuários a lidar com a sobrecarga cognitiva criada com o advento da internet e o aumento constante de documentos. De lá para cá tais sistemas passaram a assumir vários outros papéis, tais como “auxiliar usuários a explorar”, “melhorar a tomada de decisão”, ou até mesmo “entreter”. Para atingir tais novos objetivos, o sistema necessita olhar para características do usuário que auxiliem no entendimento da tarefa desempenhada pelo usuário e como a recomendação pode auxiliar tal tarefa. Nesse sentido, propõe-se nessa tese uma integração entre estratégias de recomendação e de adaptação para criar um novo processo de recomendação adaptativa. É mostrado que tal integração pode melhorar a acurácia da recomendação, e dar bons resultados na retenção de usuários, e na interação destes com os sistemas. Para validar a abordagem, é implementado um protótipo para recomendação de filmes a serem utilizados em sala de aula. São também coletadas estatísticas de 78 usuários que participaram do experimento de avaliação da abordagem. / Recommender systems were proposed in early 90’s with the goal to help users deal with cognitive overload brought by the internet and the constant increase of documents. From there to now such systems have assumed many other roles like “help users to explore”, “improve decision making”, or even “entertain”. To accomplish such new goals, the system needs to look to user characteristics that help in understand what the user task is and how to adapt the recommendation to support such task. In this direction, it is proposed in this thesis an integration between recommender and adaptive strategies into a new process of adaptive recommendation. It is shown that such integration can improve recommendation accuracy and give good results to user retention, and interaction with the systems. To validate the approach, it is implemented a prototype to recommend movies to be used in a classroom. It is also collected some statistics about the 78 users who have participated of the experiment for evaluation of the new approach.

Esta é uma pesquisa quali-quantitativa que tem por base teórico-epistemológica o Interacionismo Sociodiscursivo (ISD) e a Teoria da Complexidade, uma vez que ambas as teorias contribuem para a compreensão da ação de linguagem, enquanto Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (SAC), de sujeitos engajados em atividades de produção de textos. Dessa forma, na medida em que o desempenho de sujeitos de diferentes níveis de ensino tem sido apontado como problemático por órgãos de pesquisa em Educação, no que se refere às práticas de leitura e de produção textual, considerou-se relevante investigar a maneira como uma ferramenta digital de mineração de dados, neste caso, a ferramenta Sobek, pode evidenciar níveis de complexidade entre o conteúdo de um texto-referência e o texto-produzido. O objeto de estudo desta tese, portanto, é o recorte propiciado pela ferramenta Sobek, que ocorre por meio da geração de um grafo composto por palavras (signos) recorrentes nos textos, com vistas a sustentar a construção de uma perspectiva inter(trans)disciplinar, referente aos modos de extrair e interpretar o conteúdo desses a partir de níveis de complexidade. O corpus de pesquisa foi composto por 2 turmas de ensino superior, em nível de graduação, envolvendo a coleta de 34 textos. Esses textos foram submetidos à técnica de mineração de dados, com a utilização de uma nova versão da ferramenta, desenvolvida neste estudo, a qual permitiu importar e comparar, de forma automatizada, o conteúdo de dois textos, sendo possível gerar 3 tipos de grafos: de união, de intersecção e de diferença. O resultado da análise de dados indicou um padrão de estabilidade da ação de linguagem dos sujeitos, em relação ao conteúdo do texto-referência, sem apresentar significativa variabilidade de conceitos. Para além de uma nova versão da ferramenta, outra contribuição desta pesquisa foi a de sugerir que níveis de complexidade em caráter de estabilidade e variabilidade podem ser associados a zonas de desenvolvimento humano. / This is a quali-quantitative research whose theoretical and epistemological basis are the Interactionism Sociodiscursivo (ISD) and the Complexity Theory, once both theories contribute to the understanding of the language action, as Complex Adaptive System (CAS), of individuals engaged in text production activities. Thus, as the individuals‟ performance in different levels of education has been identified as problematic by Research Institutes of Education, related to reading and textual production practices, it was considered relevant to investigate the way a digital data mining tool, in this case, Sobek, may reveal levels of complexity between the content of a reference-text and a produced-text. The object of study of this thesis, so is the cut provided by Sobek tool, which occurs through the generation of a graph composed of words (signs) recurring in the texts, in order to support the construction of an inter(trans) disciplinary perspective, referring to ways to extract and interpret the content of the texts. The research corpus was composed of 2 classes of higher education at the undergraduate level, involving the collection of 34 texts. These texts were submitted to data mining technique, with the use of a new version of the tool, developed in this study, which allowed to import and compare, automatically, the contents of two texts automatically, been possible to generate 3 types of graphs: union, intersection and difference. The result of data analysis indicated a recurring pattern in the analyzed texts, which was to maintain the language action as stable as possible to the content of the reference-text, without presenting significant variability of concepts. In addition to the new version of the tool, another contribution of this research was to suggest that the levels of complexity in stability and variability may be associated with human development zones.

abstract: This dissertation investigates the long-term consequences of human land-use practices in general, and in early agricultural villages in specific. This pioneering case study investigates the "collapse" of the Early (Pre-Pottery) Neolithic lifeway, which was a major transformational event marked by significant changes in settlement patterns, material culture, and social markers. To move beyond traditional narratives of cultural collapse, I employ a Complex Adaptive Systems approach to this research, and combine agent-based computer simulations of Neolithic land-use with dynamic and spatially-explicit GIS-based environmental models to conduct experiments into long-term trajectories of different potential Neolithic socio-environmental systems. My analysis outlines how the Early Neolithic "collapse" was likely instigated by a non-linear sequence of events, and that it would have been impossible for Neolithic peoples to recognize the long-term outcome of their actions. The experiment-based simulation approach shows that, starting from the same initial conditions, complex combinations of feedback amplification, stochasticity, responses to internal and external stimuli, and the accumulation of incremental changes to the socio-natural landscape, can lead to widely divergent outcomes over time. Thus, rather than being an inevitable consequence of specific Neolithic land-use choices, the "catastrophic" transformation at the end of the Early Neolithic was an emergent property of the Early Neolithic socio-natural system itself, and thus likely not an easily predictable event. In this way, my work uses the technique of simulation modeling to connect CAS theory with the archaeological and geoarchaeological record to help better understand the causes and consequences of socio-ecological transformation at a regional scale. The research is broadly applicable to other archaeological cases of resilience and collapse, and is truly interdisciplinary in that it draws on fields such as geomorphology, computer science, and agronomy in addition to archaeology. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2013

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Este estudo teve por objetivo geral refletir sobre a palatalizaÃÃo das oclusivas alveolares /t, d/ → [tʃ, dʒ], caracterÃstico de muitos falares do PortuguÃs Brasileiro (PB), na construÃÃo da fonologia do InglÃs LÃngua Estrangeira (ILE). Baseados nos preceitos da Fonologia de Uso (BYBEE, 2001), do Modelo de Exemplares (PIERREHUMBERT, 2001) e na visÃo de lÃngua enquanto Sistema Adaptativo Complexo (LARSEN-FREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008), tivemos por hipÃtese bÃsica que aprendizes brasileiros apresentam percursos diferenciados de construÃÃo da fonologia do ILE, a depender de seu falar regional. Este estudo foi uma pesquisa experimental, de cunho concomitantemente transversal-longitudinal. Selecionamos dois campos de pesquisa, Fortaleza-CE e MossorÃ-RN, distintos quanto ao falar regional do PB, sendo o primeiro palatalizador das oclusivas alveolares e o segundo nÃo-palatalizador. Os informantes foram controlados ainda quanto ao sexo e ao nÃvel de proficiÃncia no ILE. Selecionamos itens lexicais propÃcios à emergÃncia da palatalizaÃÃo no PB e no ILE, buscando o controle da frequÃncia de ocorrÃncia, do contexto fonotÃtico e da tonicidade silÃbica. Fizemos uso de 5 Experimentos de coletas de dados. No PB, P1 envolveu uma conversa sobre algumas figuras, enquanto P2 utilizou a leitura de diversas frases-veÃculo. No ILE, I1 envolveu a repetiÃÃo de Ãudio distorcido associado a algumas figuras, I2 utilizou a leitura de diversas frases-veÃculo e I3 usou um jogo da memÃria em sua aplicaÃÃo. Os resultados do estudo transversal envolvendo a emergÃncia da palatalizaÃÃo das oclusivas alveolares do PB enfatizaram o carÃter nÃo-categÃrico de fenÃmeno em ambas as regiÃes: a palatalizaÃÃo foi observada no falar do RN, e oclusivas alveolares nÃo-palatalizadas foram observadas no falar do CE. A anÃlise dos dados transversais do ILE apontou: a) a variÃvel origem como fator importante para determinar a maior ou menor emergÃncia da palatalizaÃÃo, aprendizes do CE tenderam a uma maior palatalizaÃÃo; b) o tipo de vozeamento da oclusiva alveolar, com as desvozeadas mais propensas à palatalizaÃÃo; c) o indivÃduo, sujeitos da mesma regiÃo e nÃvel de proficiÃncia realizaram o fenÃmeno de forma distinta, d) a palavra, itens lexicais com a mesma sequÃncia fonotÃtica apresentaram comportamentos divergentes; e e) o tipo fonotÃtico, alguns tipos apresentaram percentuais semelhantes na realizaÃÃo da palatalizaÃÃo em ambas as regiÃes. Algumas variÃveis mostraram influÃncia relativa na realizaÃÃo do fenÃmeno, como o sexo, o nÃvel de proficiÃncia e a tonicidade silÃbica. Por fim, a frequÃncia de ocorrÃncia dos itens lexicais mostrou-se irrelevante na anÃlise de dados transversais do ILE. Em se tratando dos resultados do estudo longitudinal, observamos que os informantes do RN tenderam a uma pequena realizaÃÃo do Ãndice de PalatalizaÃÃo (IP) com o passar das coletas de dados longitudinais. Os informantes do CE presentaram comportamentos distintos. FM1 apresentou grande variaÃÃo em sua realizaÃÃo do IP, com palatalizaÃÃo mais alta que os informantes do RN. FM3 apresentou uma realizaÃÃo relativamente estÃvel de seu IP individual, com forte palatalizaÃÃo, bem mais recorrente que seus colegas. Os dados do estudo longitudinal reforÃaram a relevÃncia de variÃveis como a origem, o indivÃduo e a palavra na emergÃncia da palatalizaÃÃo no ILE de aprendizes brasileiros. Adicionalmente, durante o perÃodo de coleta de dados longitudinais nÃo encontramos indÃcios significativos de reduÃÃo do IP no ILE com o desenrolar das coletas de dados longitudinais. Tendo em vista tais evidÃncias, tomamos por confirmada a hipÃtese bÃsica que aprendizes brasileiros apresentam percursos diferenciados de construÃÃo da fonologia do ILE, a depender de seu falar regional. / This study had as its main objective to reflect upon alveolar stop palatalization /t, d/ → [tʃ, dʒ] phenomenon, characteristic of many Brazilian Portuguese (BP) dialects, in the construction of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) phonology. Grounded on the ideas proposed by Usage-Based Phonology (BYBEE, 2001), Exemplar Models (PIERREHUMBERT, 2001), as well as on the view of language as a Complex Adaptive System (LARSEN-FREEMAN; CAMERON, 2008), the basic hypothesis stated Brazilian EFL learners follow different construction pathways of the EFL phonology, depending on their regional dialect. This was an experimental research, following both a cross-sectional and longitudinal design. It had two research fields, Fortaleza-CE and MossorÃ-RN, which differed on their BP dialect, the former a palatalizing dialect and the latter a non-palatalizing one. Subjects were also controlled by sex and EFL proficiency level. Lexical items which were susceptible to palatalization in both BP and EFL were selected, aiming to control token frequency, phonotactics and syllable stress. 5 experiments were used to collect data. For BP, P1 involved a picture-induced conversation, while P2 used a carrier-sentence reading procedure. For EFL, I1 involved the repetition of distorted audio tokens associated to pictures, I2 used a carrier-sentence reading procedure and I3 focused on a memory game. BP cross-sectional results relating to the emergence of palatalization in both regions emphasized non-categorical realization of the phenomenon: palatalized tokens were observed in RN and non-palatalized ones were found in CE. EFL cross-sectional data analysis indicated: a) the variable origin as an important factor of bigger or smaller palatalization emergence, as CE learners consistently tended to higher palatalization levels; b) the alveolar stop voicing pattern, as voiceless sounds tended to palatalize more frequently; c) the individual, as subjects from the same area and proficiency level realized the phenomenon with different patterns; d) the word, as lexical items with the same phonotactic structure allowed higher or smaller palatalization emergence; and e)phonotactic structure, as a few words allowed similar palatalization emergence in both study regions. Some variables were not so relevant for the emergence of the phenomenon, like sex, proficiency level and syllable stress. Finally, token frequency was not relevant at all in the EFL cross-sectional data. As regards longitudinal results, it was observed RN subjects tended to a low Palatalization Index (PI) as longitudinal data collection took place. CE subjects had distinct behavior. FM1 had great variation on his PI, with higher PI values than RN informants. FM3 had a relatively stable PI realization, with the highest palatalization level. Longitudinal data reinforced the value of variables such as the origin, the individual and the word on the emergence of EFL palatalization of Brazilian learners. Additionally, significant PI reduction during longitudinal data collection was not observed. Having these evidences in mind, it was concluded Brazilian learners follow through different EFL phonology construction pathways, depending on their regional dialect.