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Dynamical systems can often be decomposed into loosely coupled subsystems. The system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) modelling such a problem can then be partitioned corresponding to the subsystems, and the loose couplings can be exploited by special integration methods to solve the problem using a parallel computer or just solve the problem more efficiently than by standard methods. This paper presents accuracy analysis of methods for the numerical integration of stiff partitioned systems of ODEs. The discretization formulas are based on the implicit Euler formula and the second order implicit backward differentiation formula (BDF2). Each subsystem of the partitioned problem is discretized independently, and the couplings to the other subsystems are based on solution values from previous time steps. Applied this way, the discretization formulas are called decoupled. The stability properties of the decoupled implicit Euler formula are well understood. This paper presents error bounds and asymptotic error expansions to be used in controlling step size, relaxation between subsystems and the validity of the partitioning. The decoupled BDF2 formula is analyzed within the same framework. Finally, the analysis is used in the design of a decoupled numerical integration algorithm with variable step size to control the local error and adaptive selection of partitionings. Two versions of the algorithm with decoupled implicit Euler and BDF2, respectively, are used in examples where a realistic problem is solved. The examples compare the results from the decoupled implicit Euler and BDF2 formulas, and compare them with results from the corresponding classical formulas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]