TY - JOUR T1 - The Sigma Profile: A Formal Tool to Study Organization and its Evolution at Multiple Scales JF - Complexity Y1 - 2011 A1 - Carlos Gershenson AB - The σ profile is presented as a tool to analyze the organization of systems at different scales, and how this organization changes in time. Describing structures at different scales as goal-oriented agents, one can define σ ∈ [0,1] (satisfaction) as the degree to which the goals of each agent at each scale have been met. σ reflects the organization degree at that scale. The σ profile of a system shows the satisfaction at different scales, with the possibility to study their dependencies and evolution. It can also be used to extend game theoretic models. The description of a general tendency on the evolution of complexity and cooperation naturally follows from the σ profile. Experiments on a virtual ecosystem are used as illustration. VL - 16 UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.0504 ER -