where Sk contains the optimal set of vertices found in iteration k. This requires that the new solution differs from all previous ones in at least one graph part. We note that to use this type of constraint for the basic formulation of the motif finding problem, the DEE methods given above have to be modified so as not to eliminate nodes taking part in near-optimal but not necessarily optimal solutions. For the subtle motifs problem, existing DEE methods (e.g., [17]) only eliminate nodes and edges based on whether they can take part in any clique in the graph, and thus constraint 10 can be immediately applied to iteratively find cliques of successively decreasing weight.