What are the most advanced academic and/or commercial voice
speech-to-text applications in use, and what are they capable
of?

Where is the most advanced speech-to-text voice recognition software
research being done, and how effective is their product?

What are the most definitive academic and/or commercial periodicals
and publications on speech-to-text?
 
I am interested in speech-to-text voice recognition only. I am not
looking for information on voice verification recognition.

IBM's ViaVoice software is probably the best application for what
you're looking for, assuming you need a Windows based app.  Go to the
following link for more information on it:
http://www.scansoft.com/viavoice/pro/  There are other versions of the
software too, that offer varying levels of functionality.

Also available is dragon dictate.

ScanSoft Dragon Natrually Speaking is also another good choice
"http://www.scansoft.com/naturallyspeaking/"

IBM's ViaVoice is *not* quality software. 

Get Dragon NaturallySpeaking, even though they're slightly more
expensive. The following link is an article I wrote with a direct
comparison between the two software packages:

http://www.andybrain.com/extras/voice_recognition.htm