Speci cations of requirements for new software systems can be revised, re ned or completed in reference to speci cations of requirements for existing similar systems. Although realized as a form of analogical problem solving, speci cation by reuse is not adequately supported by a vailable computational models for detecting analogies. This is chie y due to the following reasons: (1) It is assumed that speci cations are expressed according to the same speci cation model and in a uniform

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... tion scheme. (2) Additional information is needed for the detection of analogies, which is not contained in the speci cations. (3) Performance scales poorly with the complexity of speci cations. This paper presents a computational model for detecting analogies, which addresses these issues to a certain extent. The application of the model in the speci cation of requirements by analogical reuse is demonstrated through an example, and its sensitivity to the representation of speci cations is discussed. Finally, the results of a preliminary empirical evaluation of the model are reported.