Pandas fix

[gbarter]

Purpose

Pandas 2.2 changed the output sort rules for merge/join operations and this caused some rows indices to be mismatched. Added sort=True to all operations to clear that up. Also fixes some "Future Deprecation Warnings"

Type of change

• Bugfix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (non-backwards-compatible fix or feature)
• Code style update (formatting, renaming)
• Refactoring (no functional changes, no API changes)
• Documentation update
• Maintenance update
• Other (please describe)

Testing

• I have run existing tests which pass locally with my changes
• I have added new tests or examples that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
• I have added necessary documentation