• continued government spending on defense-related and scientific research projects where we are a vendor directly or as a subcontractor; • maintenance of supply relating to products sold to the government on terms which we would prefer not to accept; • changes in policy, interpretations, or challenges to the allowability of costs incurred under government cost accounting standards; • our ability and the ability of our contractual counterparts to comply with the terms of our contracts; • damage to our reputation as a result of coverage in social media, Internet blogs or other media outlets; • managing our and other parties' compliance with contracts in multiple languages and jurisdictions; • managing our internal and third party sales representatives and distributors, including compliance with all applicable laws; • costs, expenses and damages arising from litigation; • costs associated with designing around or payment of licensing fees associated with issued patents in our fields of business; • individual employees intentionally or negligently failing to comply with our internal controls; • government support of alternative energy industries, such as solar; • negative impacts related to the "Brexit" vote by the United Kingdom, including uncertainties regarding the effects of an increasingly prolonged Brexit process and the possibility of a “no-deal” exit by the United Kingdom from the European Union, particularly with regard to any potential negative effects on our sales from our Glasgow, Scotland facility to other jurisdictions and purchases of supplies from outside the United Kingdom by such facility; • negative impacts related to the recent independence movement in Catalonia, Spain, particularly with regard to holding and operating some of our foreign entities in an efficient manner from a tax, business and legal perspective; • negative impacts related to government instability in any jurisdiction in which we operate, such as the recent difficulties in forming a governing coalition in Germany; • the future impact of legislation, rulemaking, and changes in accounting, tax, defense procurement and export policies; and • distraction of management related to acquisition, integration or divestment activities. In addition, we often recognize a substantial portion of our sales in the last month of our fiscal quarters. Our expenses for any given quarter are typically based on expected sales, and if sales are below expectations in any given quarter, the adverse impact of the shortfall on our operating results may be magnified by our inability to adjust spending quickly enough to compensate for the shortfall. We also base our manufacturing on our forecasted product mix for the quarter. If the actual product mix varies significantly from our forecast, we may not be able to fill some orders during that quarter, which would result in delays in the shipment of our products. Accordingly, variations in timing of sales, particularly for our higher priced, higher margin products, can cause significant fluctuations in quarterly operating results. Due to these and other factors, we believe that quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year comparisons of our historical operating results may not be meaningful. You should not rely on our results for any quarter or year as an indication of our future performance. Our operating results in future quarters and years may be below public market analysts' or investors' expectations, which would likely cause the price of our stock to fall. In addition, over the past several years, U.S. and global equity markets have experienced significant price and volume fluctuations that have affected the stock prices of many technology companies both in and outside our industry. There has not always been a direct correlation between this volatility and the performance of particular companies subject to these stock price fluctuations. These factors, as well as general economic and political 22