Iraq states that sheep production is subject to regular peaks and troughs, linked to economic factors, diseases and management practices.

The history of international negotiations on disarmament is, as you will be acutely aware, one of ups and downs, peaks and troughs.

The dialogue has a cyclical pattern, with peaks and troughs, and we hope that the peaks will define the current engagement between India and Pakistan.

Systems, procedures and contractual modalities appropriate for a self-financing entity, which faces fluctuations in demand and which allows UNOPS to moderate volatility by adapting flexibly to operational peaks and troughs, should also be considered.

The statistical profile also points to some of the problems encountered in running conference services in Vienna (as elsewhere) including peaks and troughs in demand for meetings servicing, the timeliness of document submission and distribution, and disparities between forecasts and submissions for translation work.

Such a system does not allow for business recovery to take place, nor does it allow for the availability of some form of working capital or business reserve that could be used to iron out the peaks and troughs in revenue over time.

UNCTAD stated that uninformed trading combined with herd behaviour related to the managed funds that used technical-analysis tools, such as trend identification and extrapolation and algorithmic trading, for position-taking had resulted in increased short-term price volatility, as well as the overshooting of price peaks and troughs.

There are numerous other examples of inconsistencies among the four duty stations.1 There has been, until recently, no uniform method for recovering costs when staff are loaned from one duty station to another; there was no clear system of staff exchanges to support conferences and major events; there is little coordination of outsourcing of translating and other services; there is room for improvement in the administration of examinations; there is little consistency in information technology capability and structure across duty stations; there was no centralized, uniform database accessible by all duty stations which shows meetings to be held and peaks and troughs in work across the year; there was no uniformity in the setting of page limits, waivers or the use of the slotting system; there is no uniformity in definitions, referencing, terminology, formatting or spelling across duty stations.