Digital Twin technology is an emerging concept that has become the centre of attention for industry and, in more recent years, academia. The advancements in industry 4.0 concepts have facilitated its growth, particularly in the manufacturing industry. The Digital Twin is defined extensively but is best described as the effortless integration of data between a physical and virtual machine in either direction. The challenges, applications, and enabling technologies for Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and Digital Twins are presented. A review of publications relating to Digital Twins is performed, producing a categorical review of recent papers. The review has categorised them by research areas: manufacturing, healthcare and smart cities, discussing a range of papers that reflect these areas and the current state of research. The paper provides an assessment of the enabling technologies, challenges and open research for Digital Twins.

In ASPIC-style structured argumentation an argument can rebut another argument by attacking its conclusion. Two ways of formalizing rebuttal have been proposed: In restricted rebuttal, the attacked conclusion must have been arrived at with a defeasible rule, whereas in unrestricted rebuttal, it may have been arrived at with a strict rule, as long as at least one of the antecedents of this strict rule was already defeasible. One systematic way of choosing between various possible definitions of a framework for structured argumentation is to study what rationality postulates are satisfied by which definition, for example whether the closure postulate holds, i.e. whether the accepted conclusions are closed under strict rules. While having some benefits, the proposal to use unrestricted rebuttal faces the problem that the closure postulate only holds for the grounded semantics but fails when other argumentation semantics are applied, whereas with restricted rebuttal the closure postulate always holds. In this paper we propose that ASPIC-style argumentation can benefit from keeping track not only of the attack relation between arguments, but also the relation of deductive joint support that holds between a set of arguments and an argument that was constructed from that set using a strict rule. By taking this deductive joint support relation into account while determining the extensions, the closure postulate holds with unrestricted rebuttal under all admissibility-based semantics. We define the semantics of deductive joint support through the flattening method.

In recent years there has been a burgeoning interest in the use of computational methods to distinguish between elicited speech samples produced by patients with dementia, and those from healthy controls. The difference between perplexity estimates from two neural language models (LMs) - one trained on transcripts of speech produced by healthy participants and the other trained on transcripts from patients with dementia - as a single feature for diagnostic classification of unseen transcripts has been shown to produce state-of-the-art performance. However, little is known about why this approach is effective, and on account of the lack of case/control matching in the most widely-used evaluation set of transcripts (DementiaBank), it is unclear if these approaches are truly diagnostic, or are sensitive to other variables. In this paper, we interrogate neural LMs trained on participants with and without dementia using synthetic narratives previously developed to simulate progressive semantic dementia by manipulating lexical frequency. We find that perplexity of neural LMs is strongly and differentially associated with lexical frequency, and that a mixture model resulting from interpolating control and dementia LMs improves upon the current state-of-the-art for models trained on transcript text exclusively.

Image-based tracking of medical instruments is an integral part of many surgical data science applications. Previous research has addressed the tasks of detecting, segmenting and tracking medical instruments based on laparoscopic video data. However, the methods proposed still tend to fail when applied to challenging images and do not generalize well to data they have not been trained on. This paper introduces the Heidelberg Colorectal (HeiCo) data set - the first publicly available data set enabling comprehensive benchmarking of medical instrument detection and segmentation algorithms with a specific emphasis on robustness and generalization capabilities of the methods. Our data set comprises 30 laparoscopic videos and corresponding sensor data from medical devices in the operating room for three different types of laparoscopic surgery. Annotations include surgical phase labels for all frames in the videos as well as instance-wise segmentation masks for surgical instruments in more than 10,000 individual frames. The data has successfully been used to organize international competitions in the scope of the Endoscopic Vision Challenges (EndoVis) 2017 and 2019.

We empirically evaluate an undervolting technique, i.e., underscaling the circuit supply voltage below the nominal level, to improve the power-efficiency of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) accelerators mapped to Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Undervolting below a safe voltage level can lead to timing faults due to excessive circuit latency increase. We evaluate the reliability-power trade-off for such accelerators. Specifically, we experimentally study the reduced-voltage operation of multiple components of real FPGAs, characterize the corresponding reliability behavior of CNN accelerators, propose techniques to minimize the drawbacks of reduced-voltage operation, and combine undervolting with architectural CNN optimization techniques, i.e., quantization and pruning. We investigate the effect of environmental temperature on the reliability-power trade-off of such accelerators. We perform experiments on three identical samples of modern Xilinx ZCU102 FPGA platforms with five state-of-the-art image classification CNN benchmarks. This approach allows us to study the effects of our undervolting technique for both software and hardware variability. We achieve more than 3X power-efficiency (GOPs/W) gain via undervolting. 2.6X of this gain is the result of eliminating the voltage guardband region, i.e., the safe voltage region below the nominal level that is set by FPGA vendor to ensure correct functionality in worst-case environmental and circuit conditions. 43% of the power-efficiency gain is due to further undervolting below the guardband, which comes at the cost of accuracy loss in the CNN accelerator. We evaluate an effective frequency underscaling technique that prevents this accuracy loss, and find that it reduces the power-efficiency gain from 43% to 25%.

We establish versions of Conley's (i) fundamental theorem and (ii) decomposition theorem for a broad class of hybrid dynamical systems. The hybrid version of (i) asserts that a globally-defined "hybrid complete Lyapunov function" exists for every hybrid system in this class. Motivated by mechanics and control settings where physical or engineered events cause abrupt changes in a system's governing dynamics, our results apply to a large class of Lagrangian hybrid systems (with impacts) studied extensively in the robotics literature. Viewed formally, these results generalize those of Conley and Franks for continuous-time and discrete-time dynamical systems, respectively, on metric spaces. However, we furnish specific examples illustrating how our statement of sufficient conditions represents merely an early step in the longer project of establishing what formal assumptions can and cannot endow hybrid systems models with the topologically well characterized partitions of limit behavior that make Conley's theory so valuable in those classical settings.

Over the years, performance evaluation has become essential in computer vision, enabling tangible progress in many sub-fields. While talking-head video generation has become an emerging research topic, existing evaluations on this topic present many limitations. For example, most approaches use human subjects (e.g., via Amazon MTurk) to evaluate their research claims directly. This subjective evaluation is cumbersome, unreproducible, and may impend the evolution of new research. In this work, we present a carefully-designed benchmark for evaluating talking-head video generation with standardized dataset pre-processing strategies. As for evaluation, we either propose new metrics or select the most appropriate ones to evaluate results in what we consider as desired properties for a good talking-head video, namely, identity preserving, lip synchronization, high video quality, and natural-spontaneous motion. By conducting a thoughtful analysis across several state-of-the-art talking-head generation approaches, we aim to uncover the merits and drawbacks of current methods and point out promising directions for future work. All the evaluation code is available at: https://github.com/lelechen63/talking-head-generation-survey.

Randomized Numerical Linear Algebra (RandNLA) uses randomness to develop improved algorithms for matrix problems that arise in scientific computing, data science, machine learning, etc. Determinantal Point Processes (DPPs), a seemingly unrelated topic in pure and applied mathematics, is a class of stochastic point processes with probability distribution characterized by sub-determinants of a kernel matrix. Recent work has uncovered deep and fruitful connections between DPPs and RandNLA which lead to new guarantees and improved algorithms that are of interest to both areas. We provide an overview of this exciting new line of research, including brief introductions to RandNLA and DPPs, as well as applications of DPPs to classical linear algebra tasks such as least squares regression, low-rank approximation and the Nystr"om method. For example, random sampling with a DPP leads to new kinds of unbiased estimators for least squares, enabling more refined statistical and inferential understanding of these algorithms; a DPP is, in some sense, an optimal randomized algorithm for the Nystr"om method; and a RandNLA technique called leverage score sampling can be derived as the marginal distribution of a DPP. We also discuss recent algorithmic developments, illustrating that, while not quite as efficient as standard RandNLA techniques, DPP-based algorithms are only moderately more expensive.

Bilateral occipital nerve release surgery was the first, significant step to relieving Scurry's debilitating post-concussive headaches.

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A nonmetallic compound having an ionic bond with a halide ion is used as a catalyst for living radical polymerization. Even if a radical initiator is not used, a monomer can be subjected to a radical polymerization to obtain a polymer having narrow molecular weight distribution. The cost of the living radical polymerization can be remarkably reduced, and it is made possible to prevent adverse effects of using a radical initiator (such as side reactions). The present invention is significantly more environmentally friendly and economically excellent than conventional living radical polymerization methods, due to advantages such as low toxicity of the catalyst, low amount of the catalyst necessary, high solubility of the catalyst, mild reaction conditions, and no coloration/no odor, etc. The catalyst can be applied to various monomers and enables synthesis of high molecular weight polymers.

The invention concerns a new process for the preparation of crystalline form of agomelatine from a solution of agomelatine in a solvent, characterized in that the agomelatine is crystallized by instantaneous precipitation from said solution, at a temperature equal to or below −10° C.

An object of the present invention is to produce a non-conventional high-quality BNA single crystal. Another object of the present invention is to provide a process for producing the above-described high-quality BNA single crystal. Specifically, the present invention provides a BNA crystal characterized by having a half-value width of diffraction peak X-ray intensity of 100 seconds or less in a rocking curve measurement by X-ray diffraction method.

Dental compositions are provided comprising a compound of Formula (I) or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof: wherein n is an integer from about 2 to about 5.

Provided herein are processes for preparing estolides and estolide base oils from fatty acid reactants utilizing catalysts. Further provided herein are processes for preparing carboxylic esters from at least one carboxylic acid reactant and at least one olefin.

A method of forming a product from an oil feedstock, such as a biodiesel product, and a heterogeneous catalyst system used to form said product is disclosed. This catalyst system, which has a high tolerance for the presence of water and free fatty acids (FFA) in the oil feedstock, may simultaneously catalyze both the esterification of FAA and the transesterification of triglycerides present in the oil feedstock. The catalyst system is comprised of a mixture of zinc oxide and a second metal oxide. The zinc oxide includes a mixture of amorphous zinc oxide and zinc oxide nanocrystals, the zinc nanocrystals having a mean grain size between about 20 and 80 nanometers with at least one of the nanocrystals including a mesopore having a diameter of about 5 to 15 nanometers. Preferably, the second metal oxide is a lanthanum oxide, the lanthanum oxide being selected as one from the group of La2CO5, LaOOH, and combinations or mixtures thereof.

The present invention provides bifunctional silica mesoporous materials, including mesoporous silica nanoparticles (“MSN”), having pores modified with diarylammonium triflate and perfluoroaryl moieties, that are useful for the acid-catalyzed esterification of organic acids with organic alcohols.

This invention relates to an improved process for the preparation of green fatty acid methyl esters (FAME; commonly called as biodiesel) from different triglyceride oils using mixed metal oxides derived from layered double hydroxides (referred here as LDHs) as reusable solid heterogeneous base catalysts. This process uses very low alcohohoil molar ratio and catalyst and/or products are easily separable after the reaction through simple physical processes. The properties of thus obtained biodiesel meet the standard biodiesel values and can directly be used as transport fuel.

Disclosed are oil-extended olefin block copolymer compositions with microcrystalline wax. The microcrystalline wax reduces oil-bleed while maintaining composition softness.

Catalyst compositions comprising metallocene complexes having polymerisable olefinic groups substituent on an organic group containing a cyclopentadienyl nucleus may be used for the preparation of polyolefins. The catalyst compositions may be in the form of polymers comprising the metallocene complex and may be suitably supported on inorganic supports. Polymers having a broad range of density and melt indices as well as low hexane extractables and excellent powder morphology and flowability may be obtained by use of the catalyst compositions. Preferred metallocene complexes are zirconium complexes in which the polymerisable olefinic group is vinyl.

This invention relates to a process for polymerizing ethylene comprising contacting ethylene and optional comonomers with a catalyst system comprising an activator and a transition metal compound represented by the formula: ##STR1## Wherein R1 and R2 are independently hydrogen or a group having up to 100 carbon atoms, Cp1 is a bulky ligand; Cp2 is a bulky ligand or a heteroatom optionally bound to a C1 to C50 hydrocarbyl group, n is the valence state of the transition metal, Tm is a Group 3 to 10 metal, and each X is independently an anionic leaving group.

A process for producing an alkali metal cyclopentadienylide is disclosed which comprises reacting in a solvent an alkali metal hydride with a disubstituted or trisubstituted 1,3-cyclopentadiene. Further, a process for producing a dihalobis(η-substituted-cyclopentadienyl)zirconium is disclosed which comprises reacting a zirconium halide with the above alkali metal cyclopentadienylide. The former process enables performing the reaction between the disubstituted or trisubstituted 1,3-cyclopentadiene and the alkali metal hydride at an easily controllable temperature of room temperature to about 150° C. and also enables obtaining the alkali metal cyclopentadienylide in high yield. The latter process enables obtaining the dihalobis(η-substituted-cyclopentadienyl)zirconium in high yield.

Metallocene compounds having two fluorenyl ligands bridged with a single silicon or germanium atom, said atom having two substituent groups containing a total of at least four carbon atoms, are useful as catalyst components for the polymerization of olefins. Particularly, it is possible to prepare high molecular weight atactic polypropylene with improved yields with respect to the known catalysts.

Compositions and methods for the solid phase synthesis of organic compounds are provided. The compositions are solid supports having an attached traceless linker precursor and are represented by the formula: ##STR1## In this formula, S0 is a solid support; B is a connecting group; M is a transition metal, for example ruthenium, chromium, iron, molybdenum and manganese; each L is independently a transition metal ligand; the letter n represents an integer of from 1 to 4, such that M has a sufficient number of ligands to fill the available valences; and X- represents an anion which is typically a non-nucleophilic anion.

Disclosed is a process for preparing bridged Group 4 metal complexes containing a neutral diene ligand starting from the corresponding novel, metal diene containing complexes by reaction thereof with the divalent derivative of a bridged bidentate ligand compound. The novel, intermediate metal diene complexes, their formation from tetravalent metal salts and an integrated process combining both process steps are claimed.

Metal complexes useful as components of addition polymerization catalysts are prepared by oxidizing Group 4 or Lanthanide metal containing complexes using an organic halide oxidizing agent in a unique one electron oxidation.

A metallocene compound is provided wherein to a transition metal compound is bonded a multidentate compound wherein a substituted cycloalkadienyl ring CA1 having therein a heteroaromatic group Ra containing an oxygen, sulfur or nitrogen atom on a cycloalkadienyl ring, preferably the five-membered ring thereof, and an unsubstituted or substituted cycloalkadienyl group CA2 or --(R1)N--, --O--, --S-- or --(R1)P--, preferably CA2, more preferably a substituted cycloalkadienyl group identical with CA1 are bonded through a divalent linking group. The metallocene compound is suitable as a principal ingredient of a catalyst for the polymerization of olefins, particularly achieving a very high effect in making the molecular weight of a polypropylene higher.

A number of process steps are provided that can be combined to produce bridged cyclopentadienyl-fluorenyl metallocenes. The process steps include production of a cyclopentadiene compound from dicyclopentadiene; production and recovery of a fulvene compound using the cyclopentadiene compound; production of a raw metallocene product using the fulvene compound; and recovery of the pure metallocene from the raw product.

A process to prepare an improved fluid rare earth phosphate catalyst composition useful in preparing alkylene oxide adducts of organic compounds having active hydrogen atoms is provided. The catalyst is prepared by dissolving a rare earth salt in a C9-C30 active hydrogen containing organic compound and then adding phosphoric acid to the organic compound rare earth mixture.

A metal complex having a β-diketonate represented by the following formula (1): wherein M represents a metal atom of the VIII group, R1, R2 and R3 represent a group or an atom selected from the group consisting of an alkyl group, an aryl group, a hydroxyl group, an amino group, an alkoxy group, a hydrogen atom and a halogen atom; X−1 represents an ion selected from a halogen, nitric acid, sulfonic acid, fluoroboric acid, fluorophosphoric acid, or perchloric acid ion; L1 or L2 represents a 2,2'-bipyridine or 1,10-phenanthroline group where these groups may be substituted with a group or an atom selected from an alkyl group, a carboxyl group, a sulfonic acid group, a phosphonic acid group, a hydroxyl group, an amino group, a hydrogen atom and a halogen atom. A photoelectric conversion element and a photochemical cell using the above-mentioned metal complex.

Methods for the addition polymerization of cycloolefins using a cationic Group 10 metal complex and a weakly coordinating anion of the formula: [(R')zM(L')x(L″)y]b[WCA]dwherein [(R')zM(L')x(L″)y] is a cation complex where M represents a Group 10 transition metal; R' represents an anionic hydrocarbyl containing ligand; L' represents a Group 15 neutral electron donor ligand; L″ represents a labile neutral electron donor ligand; x is 1 or 2; and y is 0, 1, 2, or 3; and z is 0 or 1, wherein the sum of x, y, and z is 4; and [WCA] represents a weakly coordinating counteranion complex; and b and d are numbers representing the number of times the cation complex and weakly coordinating counteranion complex are taken to balance the electronic charge on the overall catalyst complex.

A method of forming a film on a substrate using Group IIIA metal complexes. The complexes and methods are particularly suitable for the preparation of semiconductor structures using chemical vapor deposition techniques and systems.

A process for obtaining silicon-bridged metallocene compounds comprising the following steps: a) reacting, at a temperature of between −10° C. and 70° C., the starting ligand with about 2 molar equivalents of an alkylating agent;b) after the reaction has been completed, adding at least 2 molar equivalents of an alkylating agent that can be also different from the first one; andc) reacting, at a temperature of between −10° C. and 70° C., the product obtained from step b) with at least 1 molar equivalent of a compound of formula ML's, wherein M is a transition metal; s is an integer corresponding to the oxidation state of the metal; and L' is an halogen atom selected from chlorine, bromine and iodine.

Compounds of the formula (I) or (I'), where R1 is a hydrogen atom or C1-C4-alkyl and R'1 is C1-C4-alkyl; X1 and X2 are each, independently of one another, a secondary phosphine group; R2 is hydrogen, R01R02R03Si—, C1-C18.acyl substituted by halogen, hydroxy, C1-C8-alkoxy or R04R05N—, -or R06—X01—C(O)—; R01, R02 and R03 are each, independently of one another, C1-C12-alkyl, unsubstituted or C1-C4-alkyl or C1-C4-alkoxy-substituted C6-C10-aryl or C7-C12-aralkyl; R04 and R05 are each, independently of one another, hydrogen, C1-C12-alkyl, C3-C8-cycloalkyl, C6-C10-aryl or C7-C12-aralkyl, or R04 and R05 together are trimethylene, tetramethylene, pentamethylene or 3-oxapcntylene; R06 is C1-C18-alkyl, unsubstituted or C1-C4-alkyl- or C1-C4-alkoxy-substituted C3-C8-cycloalkyl, C6-C10-aryl or C7-C12-aralkyl; X01 is —O— or —NH—; T is C6-C20-arylene; v is 0 or an integer from 1 to 4; and * denotes a mixture of racemic or enantiomerically pure diastereomers or pure racemic or enantiomerically diastereomers, are excellent chiral ligands for metal complexes as enantioselective catalysts for the hydrogenation of prochiral organic compounds.

This invention relates to processes for the production of organometallic compounds represented by the formula M(L)3 wherein M is a Group VIII metal, e.g., ruthenium, and L is the same or different and represents a substituted or unsubstituted amidinato group or a substituted or unsubstituted amidinato-like group, which process comprises (i) reacting a substituted or unsubstituted metal source compound, e.g., ruthenium (II) compound, with a substituted or unsubstituted amidinate or amidinate-like compound in the presence of a solvent and under reaction conditions sufficient to produce a reaction mixture comprising said organometallic compound, e.g., ruthenium (III) compound, and (ii) separating said organometallic compound from said reaction mixture. The organometallic compounds are useful in semiconductor applications as chemical vapor or atomic layer deposition precursors for film depositions.

The present invention relates to a catalyst composition for oligomerization of ethylene, comprising a chromium compound; a ligand of the general structure R1R2P—N(R3)—P(R4)—N(R5)—H, wherein R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5 are independently selected from halogen, amino, trimethylsilyl, C1-C10-alkyl, aryl and substituted aryl; a modifier containing organic or inorganic halide; and an activator or co-catalyst; and a process for oligomerization utilizing that catalyst.

A method for preparing fuel components from crude tall oil. Feedstock containing tall oil including unsaturated fatty acids is introduced to a catalytic hydrodeoxygenation to convert unsaturated fatty acids, rosin acids and sterols to fuel components. Crude tall oil is purified in a purification by washing the crude tall oil with washing liquid and separating the purified crude tall oil from the washing liquid. The purified crude tall oil is introduced directly to the catalytic hydrodeoxygenation as a purified crude tall oil feedstock. An additional feedstock may be supplied to the catalytic hydrodeoxygenation.

A process for reforming hydrocarbons is presented. The process involves applying process controls over the reaction temperatures to preferentially convert a portion of the hydrocarbon stream to generate an intermediate stream, which will further react with reduced endothermicity. The intermediate stream is then processed at a higher temperature, where a second reforming reactor is operated under substantially isothermal conditions.

A process is presented for the increasing the yields of aromatics from reforming a hydrocarbon feedstream. The process includes splitting a naphtha feedstream into a light hydrocarbon stream, and a heavier stream having a relatively rich concentration of naphthenes. The heavy stream is reformed to convert the naphthenes to aromatics and the resulting product stream is further reformed with the light hydrocarbon stream to increase the aromatics yields. The catalyst is passed through the reactors in a sequential manner.

A method for controlling 2-isomer content in linear alkylbenzene obtained by alkylating benzene with olefins and catalyst used in the method.

A catalyst comprising an aluminosilicate zeolite having an MOR framework type, an acidic MFI molecular sieve component having a Si/Al2 molar ratio of less than 80, a metal component comprising one or more elements selected from groups VIB, VIIB, VIII, and IVA, an inorganic oxide binder, and a fluoride component.

This invention relates to a method for increasing thermal stability of fuel, as well as in reducing nitrogen content and/or enhancing color quality of the fuel. According to the method, a fuel feedstock can be treated with a solid phosphoric acid catalyst under appropriate catalyst conditions, e.g., to increase the thermal stability of the fuel feedstock. Preferably, the fuel feedstock can be treated with the solid phosphoric acid catalyst at a ratio of catalyst mass within a contact zone to a mass flow rate of feedstock through the zone of at least about 18 minutes to increase the thermal stability of the fuel feedstock, along with reducing nitrogen content and/or enhancing color quality.

This invention relates to the oligomerization of olefinic compounds in the presence of an activated oligomerization catalyst. The invention also extends to a particular manner for providing an activated oligomerization catalyst. According to the present invention, there is provided a process for producing an oligomeric product by the oligomerization of at least one olefinic compound, the process including (a) providing an activated oligomerization catalyst by combining, in any order, iii) a source of chromium, ιv) a ligating compound of the formula (R1)mX1(Y)X2(R2)n wherein X1 and X2 are independently an atom selected from the group consisting of nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, oxygen, sulphur and selenium or said atom oxidized by S, Se, N or O where the valence of X1 and/or X2 allows for such oxidation, Y is a linking group between X1 and X2 which linking group contains at least one nitrogen atom which is directly bonded to X1 or X2, m and n are independently 0, 1 or a larger integer, and R1 and R2 are independently hydrogen, a hydrocarbyl group, an organoheteryl group or a heterohydrocarbyl group, and the respective R1 groups are the same or different when m>1, and the respective R2 groups are the same or different when n>1, in) a catalyst activator which is an organoboron compound including a cation and a non-coordinating anion of the general formula [(R10)xL*-H]+[B(R20)4]− wherein L* is an atom selected from the group consisting of N, S and P, the cation [(R10)x L*-H]* is a Bronsted acid, x is an integer 1, 2 or 3, each R10 is the same or different when x is 2 or 3 and each is a —H, hydrocarbyl group or a heterohydrocarbyl group, provided that at least one of R10 comprises at least 6 carbon atoms and provided further that the total number of carbon atoms in (R10)x collectively is greater than 12, R20 independently at each occurrence is selected from the group consisting of hydride, dialkylamido, halide, alkoxide, aryloxide, hydrocarbyl, halosubstituted-hydrocarbyl radicals, halosubstituted-alkoxide, halosubstituted-aryloxide and a halosubstituted aromatic ring moiety with at least one halide substituent on the aromatic ring, and vi) an aliphatic solvent, and (b) contacting the at least one olefinic compound with the activated oligomerization catalyst to produce an oligomeric product.

A process for the double-bond isomerization of olefins is disclosed. The process may include contacting a fluid stream comprising olefins with a fixed bed comprising an activated basic metal oxide isomerization catalyst to convert at least a portion of the olefin to its isomer. The isomerization catalysts disclosed herein may have a reduced cycle to cycle deactivation as compared to conventional catalysts, thus maintaining higher activity over the complete catalyst life cycle.