An improved pencil-of-functions method and comparisons with traditional methods of pole extraction

Prony´s method is usually used for the determination of poles from experimental data in the singularity expansion method (SEM) literature, It is the aim here to show that this is not the best method and that Jain´s pencil-of-functions (POF) method can be generalized to provide a better method. An example of such a method is given.