monad

4 definitions found

monad - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Monad \Mon"ad\, n. [L. monas, -adis, a unit, Gr. ?, ?, fr.
     mo`nos alone.]
     1. An ultimate atom, or simple, unextended point; something
        ultimate and indivisible.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Philos. of Leibnitz) The elementary and indestructible
        units which were conceived of as endowed with the power to
        produce all the changes they undergo, and thus determine
        all physical and spiritual phenomena.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Zool.) One of the smallest flagellate Infusoria; esp.,
        the species of the genus Monas, and allied genera.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. (Biol.) A simple, minute organism; a primary cell, germ,
        or plastid.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     5. (Chem.) An atom or radical whose valence is one, or which
        can combine with, be replaced by, or exchanged for, one
        atom of hydrogen.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Monad deme (Biol.), in tectology, a unit of the first order
        of individuality.
        [1913 Webster]

monad - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  monad
      n 1: (chemistry) an atom having a valence of one
      2: a singular metaphysical entity from which material properties
         are said to derive [syn: monad, monas]
      3: (biology) a single-celled microorganism (especially a
         flagellate protozoan)

monad - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  monad
  
     <theory, functional programming> /mo'nad/ A technique from
     category theory which has been adopted as a way of dealing
     with state in functional programming languages in such a
     way that the details of the state are hidden or abstracted out
     of code that merely passes it on unchanged.
  
     A monad has three components: a means of augmenting an
     existing type, a means of creating a default value of this new
     type from a value of the original type, and a replacement for
     the basic application operator for the old type that works
     with the new type.
  
     The alternative to passing state via a monad is to add an
     extra argument and return value to many functions which have
     no interest in that state.  Monads can encapsulate state, side
     effects, exception handling, global data, etc. in a purely
     lazily functional way.
  
     A monad can be expressed as the triple, (M, unitM, bindM)
     where M is a function on types and (using Haskell notation):
  
     	unitM :: a -> M a
     	bindM :: M a -> (a -> M b) -> M b
  
     I.e. unitM converts an ordinary value of type a in to monadic
     form and bindM applies a function to a monadic value after
     de-monadising it.  E.g. a state transformer monad:
  
     	type S a = State -> (a, State)
     	unitS a  = \ s0 -> (a, s0)
     	m `bindS` k = \ s0 -> let (a,s1) = m s0
     			      in k a s1
  
     Here unitS adds some initial state to an ordinary value and
     bindS applies function k to a value m.  (`fun` is Haskell
     notation for using a function as an infix operator).  Both m
     and k take a state as input and return a new state as part of
     their output.  The construction
  
     	m `bindS` k
  
     composes these two state transformers into one while also
     passing the value of m to k.
  
     Monads are a powerful tool in functional programming.  If a
     program is written using a monad to pass around a variable
     (like the state in the example above) then it is easy to
     change what is passed around simply by changing the monad.
     Only the parts of the program which deal directly with the
     quantity concerned need be altered, parts which merely pass it
     on unchanged will stay the same.
  
     In functional programming, unitM is often called initM or
     returnM and bindM is called thenM.  A third function, mapM is
     frequently defined in terms of then and return.  This applies
     a given function to a list of monadic values, threading some
     variable (e.g. state) through the applications:
  
     	mapM :: (a -> M b) -> [a] -> M [b]
     	mapM f []     = returnM []
     	mapM f (x:xs) = f x		   `thenM` ( \ x2 ->
     	                mapM f xs          `thenM` ( \ xs2 ->
     	    		returnM (x2 : xs2)         ))
  
     (2000-03-09)
  

monad - Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 :

  63 Moby Thesaurus words for "monad":
     I, ace, air, an existence, atom, atomic particles, being, body,
     brute matter, building block, chemical element, component,
     constituent, creature, critter, earth, electron, element,
     elementary particle, elementary unit, entelechy, entity, fire,
     fundamental particle, hyle, hypostasis, individual, ion, life,
     material, material world, materiality, matter, meson, molecule,
     natural world, nature, no other, none else, nothing else,
     nought beside, nuclear particle, object, one, one and only,
     organism, person, persona, personality, physical world, plenum,
     proton, quark, something, soul, stuff, substance, substratum,
     the four elements, thing, unit, unit of being, water