In the paper _[Semi-supervised learning by mixed label propagation][1]_ Wei Tong and Rong Jin define $S$ as the similarity(adjacency) matrix $D = diag(D_1, D_2, ..., D_n)$ where $D_i = \sum_{j=1}^nS_{i,j}$ class assignment $\textbf{y} = (y_1, y_2, ..., y_n)$ Given the class labels of $n_l$ examples, $\widehat{y}_l = (\widehat{y}_1, \widehat{y}_2,...,\widehat{y}_{nl})$, the optimal class assignment **y** is found by minimizing the energy function [![problem][2]][2] where $E(S, \textbf{y}) = \sum_{i, j=1}^n S_{ij}(y_i - y_j)^2 = \textbf{y}^TL \textbf{y}, L = D - S$. How to find $y_u$? I have tried the following. $E(S, \textbf{y}) = \begin{bmatrix} y_l & y_u \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} L^{l, l} & L^{l, u}\\ L^{u, l} & L^{u, u}\\ \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} y_l \\ y_u \end{bmatrix} $ $ = \begin{bmatrix} y_l & y_u \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} L^{l, l}y_l + L^{l, u}y_u\\ L^{u, l}y_l + L^{u, u}y_u\\ \end{bmatrix} $ $ = y_l^TL^{l, l}y_l + y_l^TL^{l, u}y_u + y_u^TL^{u, l}y_l + y_u^TL^{u, u}y_u$ when I take the derivative w.r.t $y_u$ I don't understand how to differentiate $y_u^TL^{u, l}y_l$. Following this [method][3], $(y_u + h)^TL^{u, l}y_l - y_u^TL^{u, l}y_l = h^TL^{u, l}y_l$ Now, how to divide by $h$. Also if this is not the correct way, how to find $y_u$ then? [1]: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1619645.1619750 [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/ivb0M.png [3]: https://math.stackexchange.com/a/312083/336994