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Key Clinical Message Large language models have made artificial intelligence readily available to the general public and potentially have a role in healthcare; however, their use in difficult differential diagnosis is still limited, as demonstrated by a case of necrotizing otitis externa. Abstract This case report presents a peculiar case of necrotizing otitis externa (NOE) with skull base involvement which proved diagnostically challenging. The initial patient presentation and the imaging performed on the 78‐year‐old patient suggested a neoplastic rhinopharyngeal lesion and only after several unsuccessful biopsies the patient was transferred to our unit. Upon re‐evaluation of the clinical picture, a clinical hypothesis of NOE with skull base erosion was made and confirmed by identifying Pseudomonas aeruginosa in biopsy specimens of skull base bone and external auditory canal skin. Upon diagnosis confirmation, the patient was treated with culture‐oriented long‐term antibiotics with complete resolution of the disease. Given the complex clinical presentation, we chose to submit a posteriori this NOE case to two large language models (LLM) to test their ability to handle difficult differential diagnoses. LLMs are easily approachable artificial intelligence tools that enable human‐like interaction with the user relying upon large information databases for analyzing queries. The LLMs of choice were ChatGPT‐3 and ChatGPT‐4 and they were requested to analyze the case being provided with only objective clinical and imaging data.

Dental anxiety affects up to 21% of children and 80% of adults and is associated with lifelong dental avoidance. Animal assisted activity (AAA) is widely used to reduce anxiety and pain in medical settings and has promise in dentistry. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate caregiver and patient perceptions of canine AAA in orthodontics. A cross-sectional survey consisting of pre-tested and validated questions was conducted (n = 800) including orthodontic patients (n = 352 minors, n = 204 adults) and parents/caregivers (n = 244) attending university orthodontic clinics. In this study, AAA and dog therapy were not used or tested for dental anxiety management. More than a third of orthodontic patients (37%) had moderate or greater anxiety related to care. Participants believed that therapy animals would make dental experiences more enjoyable (75%) and reduce anxiety (82%). There was little to no concern expressed regarding cleanliness (83%), allergies (81%), and safety (89%) with a therapy animal in dental settings. Almost half of the participants would preferentially select an orthodontic office offering AAA. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed whether perceptions of AAA changed before and after the shutdown of dental offices, with no significant differences. Across patients and caregivers, the responses support the use of AAA in orthodontic settings with minimal concerns.

Since the Sixties, the turning point marked by the Plate Tectonics global theory has provided new ideas for the interpretation of the complex geodynamic evolution of the Mediterranean area. The renewed interest that followed gave a strong impulse to the geological and geophysical investigations of the Mediterranean area and, more specifically, of the Tyrrhenian Basin. Therefore, large scale geophysical surveys and oceanographic cruises were carried out until the end of the Eighties to fill the gap of geophysical information existing in the area until then. Afterwards, short scale surveys were prevalent to improve the detail of the information in areas of geodynamic interest. The gathered data sets allowed new models to be formulated, improving the knowledge of the crustal and lithospheric structure of the Tyrrhenian Basin (and surrounding areas) and the reconstruction of its complex geodynamic evolution. In this frame, the contribution of gravity and magnetic investigations has been unquestionable and deserves a wide-ranging review both on large and small scale. The main features of the potential fields resulting from these surveys will be described and the interpretative models suggested by several authors will be summarized.

This paper presents a study of the Phlegrean Fields-Ischia submarine ridge by the analysis and interpretation of high-resolution aeromagnetic data recently acquired in the Western Procida offshore. The investigated area is located along the ridge connecting Ischia to the Phlegrean Fields and is characterized by the existence of several monogenetic volcanoes aligned on a NE-SW system of faults. The high-resolution magnetic data yielded new information on the area, highlighting particularly the signature of a volcanic body located between Pt. Serra and the Ruommoli shoal. This structure has not been clearly described before and we named it as the Pt. Serra submarine volcano. The computation of the analytic signal and horizontal gradient of the data distinctly located this structure and definined the position of its rims. A 2D modeling and 3D inversion of data provided information on the volcanos thickness, width and magnetization, disclosing a meaningful igneous body extending down to several hundred meters b.s.l.

In this paper we present and discuss the results of a geophysical airborne survey carried out in the Somma-Vesuvius volcanic area, Southern Italy, in 1999. The helicopter-borne survey was aimed at giving new detailed insights into the distribution of the magnetization of the area and, therefore, into the volcanological characteristics of the region, enhancing the knowledge given by a previous low resolution survey carried out at a regional scale by Agip. The new survey was carried out by flying on a surface parallel to the topography of the area, along flight lines spaced 600 m apart. The obtained total field map is dominated by a large anomaly related to the Mt. Somma-Vesuvius complex itself and characterized by a roughly elliptical shape. High-frequency anomalies occur in the edifice and in the area east of it, partly produced by cultural noise due to the densely inhabited area. The compilation of the maps of the analytic signal and of the horizontal derivative of the field allowed the location of the lateral boundaries of the magnetic sources of the area and represents a first step toward the interpretation of the maps in terms of geological structures.

In this paper we present and analyze the new detailed aeromagnetic data set resulting from a recent survey carried out in the Phlegrean Fields volcanic area. The survey was aimed at gaining new insight into the volcanological characteristics of the region north of Phlegrean Fields (Parete-Villa Literno area) where remarkable thickness of volcanic/sub- volcanic rocks were found in wells. Measurement of total magnetic field was performed on two different flight levels, 70 m and 400 m above the ground surface, along flight lines spaced 400 m apart. Both aeromagnetic maps show the noisy effect of linear anomalies evidently due to the presence of railway lines. To filter out these local anomalies a method based on discrete wavelet transform was used, allowing an accurate local filtering and leaving the rest of the field practically unchanged. The filtered data set was integrated with the existing Agip aeromagnetic map of the Phlegrean Fields, leading to a new aeromagnetic map of the whole Phlegrean volcanic area. The compilation of the pole reduced map and of the maps of the Analytic Signal and of the Horizontal Derivative of the integrated data set represents a first step for the interpretation of the maps in terms of geological structures of the whole Phlegrean volcanic district.

The Campanian volcanism develops near the sea. Therefore, the geophysical study of the marine environment is a key to a better understanding of the tectonic evolution and the origin of volcanism in the area. An abundance of high quality seismic data in the marine sector, where little direct information is available, is critical to the study of Campanian volcanism. This paper concerns the reprocessing of a seismic reflection dataset acquired in Naples Bay and processed during 1973. Even though the overall data quality was high for that time, of course their acquisition technological limits have been overcome by the new processing. Our reprocessing aimed at: 1) reduction of random noise in the data; 2) removal of unwanted coherent events; 3) reduction of spatial aliasing by means of trace interpolation on Commod Shot Point (CSP) gathering; 4) improvement of resolution of the seismic wavelet with spiking deconvolution algorithms and finally 5) reposition of reflectors in their correct locations in the space-TWT domain by means of dip moveout and post-stack time migration. A comparison between the new and old data shows that the new sections are characterized by a much higher S/N ratio. Diffraction hyperbole has been collapsed. Reverberations, ghosts and multiples have been removed or greatly attenuated, especially between the reflectors of interest, allowing us to follow them with more detail and with greater continuity. Furthermore, data resolution has been boosted by the reprocessing, allowing the interpreter to evaluate reflector position and continuity in greater detail. The reinterpretation phase of such lines, that is already in an advanced stage, will therefore allow us to gain new insights into the structural setting of the bay, with the aim of exploring the connection between tectonics and volcanism.

Volcanic areas often show complex behaviour as far as seismic waves propagation and seismic motion at surface are concerned. In fact, the finite lateral extent of surface layers such as lava flows, blocks, differential welding and/or zeolitization within pyroclastic deposits, introduces in the propagation of seismic waves effects such as the generation of surface waves at the edge, resonance in lateral direction, diffractions and scattering of energy, which tend to modify the amplitude as well as the duration of the ground motion. The irregular topographic surface, typical of volcanic areas, also strongly influences the seismic site response. Despite this heterogeneity, it is unfortunately a common geophysical and engineering practice to evaluate even in volcanic environments the subsurface velocity field with monodimensional investigation method (i.e. geognostic soundings, refraction survey, down-hole, etc.) prior to the seismic site response computation which in a such cases is obviously also made with 1D algorithms. This approach often leads to highly inaccurate results. In this paper we use a different approach, i.e. a fully 2D P-wave Çturning rayÈ tomographic survey followed by 2D seismic site response modeling. We report here the results of this approach in three sites located at short distance from Mt. Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei and characterized by overburdens constituted by volcanoclastic deposits with large lateral and vertical variations of their elastic properties. Comparison between 1D and 2D Dynamic Amplification Factor shows in all reported cases entirely different results, both in terms of peak period and spectral contents, as expected from the clear bidimensionality of the geological section. Therefore, these studies suggest evaluating carefully the subsoil geological structures in areas characterized by possible large lateral and vertical variations of the elastic properties in order to reach correct seismic site response curves to be used for engineering projects.

Geopotential data may be interpreted by many different techniques, depending on the nature of the mathematical equations correlating specific unknown ground parameters to the measured data set. The investigation based on the study of the gravity and magnetic anomaly fields represents one of the most important geophysical approaches in the earth sciences. It has now evolved aimed both at improving of known methods and testing other new and reliable techniques. This paper outlines a general framework for several applications of recent techniques in the study of the potential methods for the earth sciences. Most of them are here described and significant case histories are shown to illustrate their reliability on active seismic and volcanic areas.

Analysis of the analytic signal of the aeromagnetic field in the Tyrrhenian region allowed the systematic location of the boundaries of magnetic shallow sources. This method was chosen because of its independence from the magnetization and inducing field direction, and the results were similar to those of the boundary analysis of the horizontal gradient of the pseudogravity transformed field. The analytic signal was computed by a stable algorithm based on the second order horizontal derivatives of the field and Laplace equation. The complexity of the investigated area is well reflected in the aeromagnetic field and an objective and systematic study, such as boundary analysis, provided a rather complete description of the main regional structures. Significant trends indicated the existence of structures, whose nature was still unknown or uncertain. These included structures located between the Vavilov and De Marchi seamounts, NW of Stromboli Island, south of Ponza Island, a buried horst immediately south of the Cilento coastline, a body located northwest of the Cassinis seamount and other small magnetized structures located south of the Tuscanian archipelago. In many cases, a better definition of several structures previously recognized was obtained as in the case of some tectonic alignments (e.g., the Elba ridge, the Romolo and Selli lines, etc.), a large number of igneous seamounts (e.g., Magnaghi, Marsili, Vavilov, Anchise, Quirra, Enarete, Eolo and Sisifo seamounts) and several crystalline outcrops (e.g., Ichnusa, Vercelli, M. della Rondine, Tiberino, Cassinis, Traiano, Glauco and Augusto seamounts).

Ambiguity of depth estimation of magnetic sources via spectral analysis can be reduced representing its field via a set of space-frequency atoms. This is obtained throughout a continuous wavelet transform using a Morlet analyzing wavelet. In the phase-plane representation even a weak contribution related to deep-seated sources is clearly distinguished with respect a more intense effect of a shallow source, also in the presence of a strong noise. Furthermore, a new concept of local power spectrum allows the depth to both the sources to be correctly interpreted. Neither result can be provided by standard Fourier analysis. Another method is proposed to reduce ambiguity by inversion of potential field data lying along the vertical axis. This method allows a depth resolution to gravity or the magnetic methods and below some conditions helps to reduce their inherent ambiguity. Unlike the case of monopoles, inversion of a vertical profile of gravity data above a cubic source gives correct results for the cube side and density.