Perturbation Analysis: A Complex Systems Pattern

Patterns are a tool that enables the collective knowledge of a particular community to be recorded and transmitted in an efficient manner. Initially developed in the field of architecture and later developed by software engineers [6], they have now been adopted by the complex systems modelling community [15]. It can be argued that, while most complex systems models are idiosyncratic and highly specify to the task for which they are constructed, certain tools and methodologies may be abstracted to a level at which they are more generally applicable. This paper presents one such pattern, Perturbation Analysis, which describes the underlying framework used by several analytical and visualisation tools to quantify and explore the stability of dynamic systems. The format of this paper follows the outline specified in [15].