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This volume presents a comprehensive and in depth analysis of the progress of speech technology in the topical areas of mobile settings, healthcare and call centers. It addresses the technical aspects of voice technology within the framework of societal needs.

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Two Top Industry Leaders Speak Out Judith Markowitz When Amy asked me to co-author the foreword to her new book on advances in speech recognition, I was honored. Amy´s work has always been infused with c- ative intensity, so I knew the book would be as interesting for established speech professionals as for readers new to the speech-processing industry. The fact that I would be writing the foreward with Bill Scholz made the job even more enjoyable. Bill and I have known each other since he was at UNISYS directing projects that had a profound impact on speech-recognition tools and applications. Bill Scholz The opportunity to prepare this foreword with Judith provides me with a rare oppor- nity to collaborate with a seasoned speech professional to identify numerous signi- cant contributions to the field offered by the contributors whom Amy has recruited. Judith and I have had our eyes opened by the ideas and analyses offered by this collection of authors. Speech recognition no longer needs be relegated to the ca- gory of an experimental future technology; it is here today with sufficient capability to address the most challenging of tasks. And the point-click-type approach to GUI control is no longer sufficient, especially in the context of limitations of mode- day hand held devices. Instead, VUI and GUI are being integrated into unified multimodal solutions that are maturing into the fundamental paradigm for comput- human interaction in the future.

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Mobile Environments.- "Life on-the-Go": The Role of Speech Technology in Mobile Applications.- "Striking a Healthy Balance": Speech Technology in the Mobile Ecosystem.- "Why Tap When You Can Talk?": Designing Multimodal Interfaces for Mobile Devices that Are Effective, Adaptive and Satisfying to the User.- "Your Word is my Command": Google Search by Voice: A Case Study.- "Well Adjusted": Using Robust and Flexible Speech Recognition Capabilities in Clean to Noisy Mobile Environments.- Call Centers.- "It´s the Best of All Possible Worlds": Leveraging Multimodality to Improve Call Center Productivity.- "How am I Doing?": A New Framework to Effectively Measure the Performance of Automated Customer Care Contact Centers.- "Great Expectations": Making use of Callers´ Experiences from Everyday Life to Design a Satisfying Speech-only Interface for the Call Center.- "For Heaven´s Sake, Gimme a Live Person!" Designing Emotion-Detection Customer Care Voice Applications in Automated Call Centers.- "The Truth is Out There": Using Advanced Speech Analytics to Learn Why Customers Call Help-line Desks and How Effectively They Are Being Served by the Call Center Agent.- Clinics.- Dr. "Multi-Task": Using Speech to Build Up Electronic Medical Records While Caring for Patients.- "Hands Free": Adapting the Task-Technology-Fit Model and Smart Data to Validate End-User Acceptance of the Voice Activated Medical Tracking Application (VAMTA) in the United States Military.- "You´re as Sick as You Sound": Using Computational Approaches for Modeling Speaker State to Gauge Illness and Recovery.- "Cry Baby": Using Spectrographic Analysis to Assess Neonatal Health Status from an Infant´s Cry.

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