Hierarchical Structure

In "Statistical discovery of site inter-dependencies in sub-molecular hierarchical protein structuring" there is a sense of hierarchy to the patterns.  



Does the hierarchy represent a hierarchy of design decisions?





http://bsb.eurasipjournals.com/content/2012/1/8


http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-0025832114&origin=inward&txGid=520122D0F84D26519131C7B32C1EA990.aXczxbyuHHiXgaIW6Ho7g%3a2




http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6261312&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D6261312


Statistical