Covers: the instrumentation development; the optimization synthesis of polycrystalline materials; the single crystal growth of perovskite manganites; the determination of crystal and magnetic structures from x-ray and neutron powder diffraction data of polycrystalline and powdered single-crystalline CMR La1-xSrxMnO3 manganites as well as its application in quantitatively correlating structural and magnetic properties; the application of resonant soft x-ray scattering in the investigation of complex ordering phenomena in La7/8Sr1/8MnO3 and La1Sr2Mn2O7 at the transition metal LII, III-edges and the rare earth MIV, V-edges.