and expressed as continuous or discrete data points. One common criticism often cited regarding the usefulness of complexity science in sociology is the difficulty of obtaining adequate data. Nonetheless, application of the concept of social complexity and the analysis of such complexity has begun and continues to be an ongoing field of inquiry in sociology. From childhood friendships and teen pregnancy to criminology and counter-terrorism, theories of social complexity are being applied in almost all areas of sociological research. In the area of communications research and informetrics, the concept of self-organizing systems appears in mid-1990s research related to scientific communications. Scientometrics and bibliometrics are areas of research in which discrete data are available, as are several other areas of social communications research such as sociolinguistics. Social complexity is also a concept used in semiotics. See also Social science Complex society Complexity economics Complexity theory and organizations Differentiation (sociology) Econophysics Engaged theory Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems Personal information management General Aggregate data Artificial neural network Cognitive complexity Computational complexity theory Dual-phase evolution Evolutionary programming Game theory Generic-case complexity Multi-agent system Systemography References Further reading Byrne, David (1998). Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences. London: Routledge. Byrne, D., & Callaghan, G. (2013). Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. Routledge. Castellani, Brian and Frederic William Hafferty (2009). Sociology and Complexity Science: A New Area of Inquiry (Series: Understanding Complex Systems XV). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag. Eve, Raymond, Sara Horsfall and Mary E. Lee (1997). Chaos, Complexity and Sociology: Myths, Models, and Theories. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Jenks, Chris and John Smith (2006). Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post-Humanist Social Theory. New York, NY: Routledge. Kiel, L. Douglas (ed.) (2008). Knowledge Management, Organizational Intelligence, Learning and Complexity. UNESCO (EOLSS): Paris, France. Kiel, L. Douglas and Euel Elliott (eds.) (1997). Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences: Foundations and Applications. The University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor, MI. Leydesdorff, Loet (2001). A Sociological Theory of Communication: The Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society. Parkland, FL: Universal Publishers. Urry, John (2005). "The Complexity Turn." Theory, Culture and Society, 22(5): 1–14. Complex systems theory Self-organization Nonlinear systems Sociological theories Sociological terminology