particle interactions are surveyed. The presentation is specially designed to aid rapid assimilation of the mate-
rial not only by theorists but also by experimentalists—especially by those who are directly involved in analysis
of experimental data. Advances made in analyzing multiplicity distributions are contrasted with the problems
arising in these realms and with unresolved questions. The multiplicity distributions of particles originating
from high-energy inelastic interactions of various particles and nuclei exhibit a wide variety of forms and var-
ious types of behavior as functions of energy. At the same time, it turns out that the moments of these distribu-
tions have some special features in common that are weakly dependent on energy. These features are demon-
strated for all presently known processes, including electron–positron (e
e+) annihilation and processes featur-ing hadrons h and nuclei A (eh, hh, hA, and AA). It is interesting to note that such features in the behavior of the
moments of multiplicity distributions were first theoretically predicted in QCD for parton distributions. The oscil-
lations of the moments, the amplitudes and periods of these oscillations, and their dependence on the phase space
are discussed. The zeros of the truncated generating function for the moments and the character of the singularity
of the total generating function are also considered. It is found that the amplitudes of oscillations of cumulant
moments are greater for colliding particles with more complicated structure (that is, these amplitudes tend to
increase as we go over from e through h to A). Theoretical predictions for the moments of multiplicity distributions
in quark and gluon jets are made, and the ratios of the mean multiplicities in such jets are discussed.