»Metapatterns are overarching or fundamental patterns of patterns. Typically, we may think of something like a chess board is made up of a checkered pattern. Certainly this checkered design is a pattern, but not necessarily a "meta"-pattern. Metapatterns appear in two or more other contexts or disciplines of study and have similar functions. Such a sharing of functionality across contexts is a characteristic of metapatterns, even though specific context-related functions may vary. For instance, a cycle is a process that maintains some system. This general definition applies across contexts. However, the Kreb's Citric Acid Cycle (which produces energy as ATP molecules fits within this general function, but also has context-specific functions of using oxygen and nutrients to produce ATP from ADP molecules, and producing CO2 & H2O.«