Publications by authors named "M E Johnston"

The partitioning of photosynthate among various forest carbon pools is a key process regulating long-term carbon sequestration, with allocation to aboveground woody biomass carbon (AGBC) in particular playing an outsized role in the global carbon cycle due to its slow residence time. However, directly estimating the fraction of gross primary productivity (GPP) that goes to AGBC has historically been difficult and time-consuming, leaving us with persistent uncertainties. We used an extensive dataset of tree-ring chronologies co-located at flux towers to assess the coupling between AGBC and GPP, calculate the fraction of fixed carbon that is allocated to AGBC, and understand the drivers of variability in this fraction.

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Essential hypertension is one of the most common conditions managed in pediatric cardiology and can result in lasting deleterious effects on the cardiovascular system. Pediatric hypertension is so prevalent in the United States that it is often referred to as a public health challenge. Social determinants of health (SDH) are the cultural, economic, educational, healthcare accessibility, and political influences in the environment in which an individual is born or lives, all of which can affect that individual's overall health.

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A new proliferation of optical instruments that can be attached to towers over or within ecosystems, or 'proximal' remote sensing, enables a comprehensive characterization of terrestrial ecosystem structure, function, and fluxes of energy, water, and carbon. Proximal remote sensing can bridge the gap between individual plants, site-level eddy-covariance fluxes, and airborne and spaceborne remote sensing by providing continuous data at a high-spatiotemporal resolution. Here, we review recent advances in proximal remote sensing for improving our mechanistic understanding of plant and ecosystem processes, model development, and validation of current and upcoming satellite missions.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights the importance of improving the design of public health interventions and policies by applying principles from the behavioral sciences. These sciences play a crucial role in modifying behaviors and addressing a wide range of health challenges, from pandemics and chronic diseases to the climate crisis. This article examines the transformative impact of behavioral sciences on public health promotion, focusing on the factors that influence decision-making and intervention strategies based on the six principles developed by the WHO Technical Advisory Group.

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The composition of solid waste affects technology choices and policy decisions regarding its management. Analyses of waste composition studies are almost always made on a parameter by parameter basis. Multivariate distance techniques can create wholisitic determinations of similarities and differences and were applied here to enhance a series of waste composition comparisons.

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