What we signal today is a step-change.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Politics | Full text: Blair on law and order

The remarks seemed to signal that the ECB would step into bond markets where prohibitively high borrowing costs threaten Spain and Italy.

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This issue will seem like a nuance to some readers, but those in the field of medical research recognize it as a major step forward and a signal that the company is serious about promoting open science.

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But Cher recently indicated that the company could at some point decide to buy an operating system of its own, perhaps a signal to Google that it had better watch its step.

FORBES: Asia Power Business Women

That sent a signal to tax accountants and lawyers everywhere to watch their step.

ECONOMIST: How to defeat tax cheats

And if you just did one thing this hurricane season, make sure you've got a good family communication plan and what your backups are going to be, so when you get on that cell phone and you get that busy signal you're not stuck, you know what the next step is.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

And in the current issue of Applied Physics Letters, a group led by Haroun Ahmed at the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory in Britain reports another vital step, a single-electron transistor that, for the first time, amplifies its input signal (though only by a factor of 3.7, several hundred times more weakly than a conventional transistor does).

ECONOMIST: The transistor��s heir

Such a move would have "given out a signal to Brazilian business" that the UK was closed for business and would have been a "retrograde" step, he added.

BBC: UK Border Agency