WASHINGTON (AP) ? No list of great NCAA championship game moments is complete unless Keith Smart's jumper for Indiana in 1987 is on it.
Known by Hoosiers fans to this day as "The Shot," and known in much less complimentary terms by Syracuse faithful, that 16-foot jumper from the left side with 5 seconds to play is a film clip staple throughout March.
The memory of "The Shot," which gave Indiana a 74-73 victory, is still with Smart, now the coach of the Sacramento Kings, while Jim Boeheim, still the coach at Syracuse, revisited it every day for 16 years.
"It's pretty much every day," Smart said Wednesday when asked how often he thinks about the jumper that made him a hero in Bloomington and a villain in Syracuse. "Probably every other day something happens. I'll go somewhere to eat, or when we travel, I check into the hotel and somebody sees the name tag on the bag and they'll mention something about 'The Shot' then. Very seldom does a week go by without something that happens."
Boeheim knew exactly how long it took for him to stop thinking about Smart's play on a regular basis.
"We played very well in the game. When you lose a game like that, you really almost never get over it. I got over it in 2003," Boeheim said, referring to the Orange's first national championship, played in the same building ? the New Orleans Super Dome. "I probably thought about it for those 16 years most of the time.
"I never think about it anymore. Coach (Bob) Knight was good after the game. He told me we would get back and win it, he just didn't tell me it would take 16 years. He's smart, just not that smart."
"The Shot" has been summoned from the archives even more than usual this week because Indiana and Syracuse will meet in the East Regional semifinal Thursday night, their fourth meeting since the national championship game, but the first in the NCAA tournament.
"Probably this year more than anything, you had more people talk about its significance," Smart said. "Even when I saw the brackets, I said, 'The possibility of them coming together is pretty high.' And lo and behold it came into play. You hear a little bit more conversation because of that now, because it happened against Syracuse."
A great championship game came down to the final minute. With 38 seconds left, Syracuse's Howard Triche ? the uncle of current Orange guard Brandan Triche ? made the first of two free throws for a 73-70 lead. Six seconds later Smart scored to cut the lead to one. Four seconds later, Syracuse freshman Derrick Coleman, who finished with 19 rebounds, missed the front end of a 1-and-1. Boeheim had taken his players off the lane, conceding the rebound. Smart got the rebound. The play was supposed to go to Steve Alford, the current coach at New Mexico, who had already made six 3-pointers in the first NCAA tournament played with a 3-point line.
"It was designated for Steve, of course, but we moved the ball around," Indiana's Daryl Thomas said that Monday night. "It came to me and I kicked it out to Keith and he hit the basket."
Smart, one of the first junior college transfers to play for Knight, summed up the play at the postgame news conference.
"Tonight was my turn. ... I thank Daryl for not taking the last shot and passing out to me. ... It was a wise decision on his part."
Twenty-six years later Smart is still talking about "The Shot" because people keep asking him about it.
"I understand it. Every person, boy, girl, man or child, they want to talk about the moment or what they were doing when it happened," he said. "I don't know this person and this person comes up with all this excitement, what am I supposed to do? 'Nah, nah, I don't want to talk to you?' Nah. That's your moment and if you want to talk about, let's talk. It's going to be brief anyway. I won't rain on their parade or anything like that."
Smart is quick to recall the first time he spoke with Boeheim about it.
"When we were getting ready for the draft, kind of doing some background on different players, I called Jim Boeheim because I was looking at Dion Waiters. I called to get some information on Dion," Smart said, referring to the Syracuse guard who went on to be the No. 4 overall pick by Cleveland last June. "I called him. I said, 'Coach, this is a name from the past.' He answers the phone and says, 'A name from the past?' I said, 'This is Keith Smart. Coach Smart.' He said, 'Keith Smart, Keith Smart, Keith Smart. Let me tell you: it took me a long time to get over that.' I said, 'Coach, I would not have called you if you hadn't won one. I'd have had somebody else give you a call.' We had a good conversation after that."
Brandan Triche said he and his uncle haven't spent much time talking about the game.
"I have seen him play, but I haven't seen the actual whole game," said Triche, who said he gets called Howard on occasion. "I think watching, it was like a missed assignment. I haven't directly talked to him about it."
As with all plays that decide a championship there are the two sides and their reaction.
"It's always difficult when you lose in the championship game, the last game of the year and the last shot," Boeheim said. "That's always a difficult thing."
Smart said his current players and family are proving his college coach correct.
"They replay it all the time, every year," Smart said of his players. "They all went to college and when Indiana gets beat somewhere, they're always like, 'Oh, Indiana lost or this or that.' But I'll always have the last laugh. I played at Indiana and I won.
"That's what Coach Knight said to us after the game, 'You guys have no idea what you've done. Sure, you've won a championship. But it won't really sink in until it's 25 or 30 years from now, when your kids see it. That came to fruition about 15 years ago, my son was probably around 10. We were waiting for the tournament to come on, and they showed 'The Shot.' My son goes, 'Dad, look at you!' I was like, 'Wow, cool.' Just like Coach said after the game that night. It came true."
___
AP Sports Writer Antonio Gonzalez in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this report.
Being an indie developer, DrinkBox Studios has the freedom to make unusual choices. After finishing Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack, the team got together and tossed out ideas. This horizontal leadership structure brought out some interesting concepts and the most compelling one came from an animator. The theme he put forward was a game based on Mexican folklore and luchadores.
?Homesickness was the genesis of the game,? said developer Chris McQuinn. His studio is based in Toronto.
The result is Guacamelee!, a 2D Metroidvania style adventure, starring Juan Aguacate (That?s John Avocado in Spanish.). He?s an agave farmer who is murdered after trying to save his town and El Presidente?s daughter from Calaca, the king of the underworld. Juan is shot dead and his spirit descends to the World of the Dead. It?s there that his spirit sees a magical mask, and once he dons it, he becomes a powerful luchador.
The differences between the living world and the dead world.
Juan now has the ability to fight the monsters from the underworld and that?s a useful power to have when the king of the underworld is trying to start the apocalypse by merging the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead together. Furthermore, that duality of the worlds plays a central role in the gameplay.
The luchador can jump between both lands and he?ll need to do that to get through obstacles. The constant flipping is a mechanic that?s reminiscent of Ikagura. Juan will leap through portals taking him to the Land of the Dead where things are slightly different and he can do a wall jump and exit through a second portal and to another platform. From a casual perspective, it looks complicated, and DrinkBox admits that it will take time for players to adjust.
Some enemies will have shields and Juan will have to execute a super move that?s the same color as the barrier.
Like other Metroidvania games, Juan will gain abilities and that will open up new parts of the world. The aforementioned wall jump is taught to him by Huay Chivo, a goat man who is the closest thing our hero has to a mentor. The luchador will eventually be able to switch between the two worlds at will. When it comes to combat, Juan does have several super moves, but he can?t spam them out. It takes up stamina and players will have to use his special attacks judiciously to either give them a boost to another platform or fighting certain enemies who are weak to certain moves.
What separates Guacamelee! from other adventures though is its unique take and visual style. There aren?t many games based on Mexican folklore, and playing it, you learn to appreciate DrinkBox?s colorful art. The huge Alebrije is delightful eye candy while villains like Xtabay are unlike anything players have seen in the past. In a fun twist, the developer?s do give a nod to classic games. There are statues that look like Chozo?s from Metroid and a boss battle that resembles a the fight between Mario and Bowser in Super Mario Bros. Old-school gamers will get a kick out of that.
The Alebrije is one of the more gorgeous creatures that players will run into in the world.
Lastly, there are some advances in the genre. A second local player will be able to join the fun. Tostada appears near the beginning of the game, and she?ll be a huge help to Juan when he gets trapped in arenas where they must defeat several waves of enemies. The drawback is that having a second person makes the platforming more difficult. The other interesting feature is the PlayStation Vita support that puts the world map on the touchscreen. Instead of pausing the game to look at where to go, players can just glance down and see their destination.
From what I saw at GDC 2013, Guacamelee! is one of the more promising games from an indie developer. It?s scheduled for release this spring on the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita.
Images courtesy of Sony
Want to know what Gieson Cacho is playing? Follow him on Twitter.
Penn researchers show stem cell fate depends on 'grip' Public release date: 28-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
The field of regenerative medicine holds great promise, propelled by greater understanding of how stem cells differentiate themselves into many of the body's different cell types. But clinical applications in the field have been slow to materialize, partially owing to difficulties in replicating the conditions these cells naturally experience.
A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has generated new insight on how a stem cell's environment influences what type of cell a stem cell will become. They have shown that whether human mesenchymal stem cells turn into fat or bone cells depends partially on how well they can "grip" the material they are growing in.
The research was conducted by graduate student Sudhir Khetan and associate professor Jason Burdick, along with professor Christopher Chen, all of the School of Engineering and Applied Science's Department of Bioengineering. Others involved in the study include Murat Guvendiren, Wesley Legant and Daniel Cohen.
Their study was published in the journal Nature Materials.
Much research has been done on how stem cells grow on two-dimensional substrates, but comparatively little work has been done in three dimensions. Three-dimensional environments, or matrices, for stems cells have mostly been treated as simple scaffolding, rather than as a signal that influences the cells' development.
Burdick and his colleagues were interested in how these three-dimensional matrices impact mechanotransduction, which is how the cell takes information about its physical environment and translates that to chemical signaling.
"We're trying to understand how material signals can dictate stem cell response," Burdick said. "Rather than considering the material as an inert structure, it's really guiding stem cell fate and differentiation what kind of cells they will turn into."
The mesenchymal stem cells the researchers studied are found in bone marrow and can develop into several cell types: osteoblasts, which are found in bone; chondrocytes, which are found in cartilage; and adipocytes, which are found in fat.
The researchers cultured them in water-swollen polymer networks known as hydrogels, which share some similarities with the environments stem cells naturally grow in. These materials are generally soft and flexible contact lenses, for example, are a type of hydrogel but can vary in density and stiffness depending on the type and quantity of the bonds between the polymers. In this case, the researchers used covalently cross-linked gels, which contain irreversible chemical bonds.
When seeded on top of two-dimensional covalently cross-linked gels, mesenchymal stem cells spread and pulled on the material differently depending on how stiff it was. Critically, the mechanics guide cell fate, or the type of cells they differentiate it into. A softer environment would produce more fat-like cells and a stiffer environment, where the cells can pull on the gel harder, would produce more bone-like cells.
However, when the researchers put mesenchymal stem cells inside three-dimensional hydrogels of varying stiffness, they didn't see these kinds of changes.
"In most covalently cross-linked gels, the cells can't spread into the matrix because they can't degrade the bonds they all become fat cells," Burdick said. "That tells us that in 3D covalent gels the cells don't translate the mechanical information the same way they do in a 2D system."
To test this, the researchers changed the chemistry of their hydrogels so that the polymer chains were connected by a peptide that the cells could naturally degrade. They hypothesized that, as the cells spread, they would be able to get a better grip on their surrounding environment and thus be more likely to turn into bone-like cells.
In order to determine how well the cells were pulling on their environment, the researchers used a technique developed by Chen's lab called 3D traction force microscopy. This technique involves seeding the gel with microscopic beads, then tracking their location before and after a cell is removed.
"Because the gel is elastic and will relax back into its original position when you remove the cells," Chen said, "you can quantify how much the cells are pulling on the gel based on how much and which way it springs back after the cell is removed."
The results showed that the stem cells' differentiation into bone-like cells was aided by their ability to better anchor themselves into the growth environment.
"With our original experiment, we observed that the cells essentially didn't pull on the gel. They adhered to it and were viable, but we did not see bead displacement. They couldn't get a grip," Burdick said. "When we put the cells into a gel where they could degrade the bonds, we saw them spread into the matrix and deform it, displacing the beads."
As an additional test, the researchers synthesized another hydrogel. This one had the same covalent bonds that the stem cells could naturally degrade and spread through but also another type of bond that could form when exposed to light. They let the stem cells spread as before, but at the point the cells would begin to differentiate about a week after they were first encapsulated the researchers further "set" the gel by exposing it to light, forming new bonds the cells couldn't degrade.
"When we introduced these cross-links so they could no longer degrade the matrix, we saw an increase toward fat-like cells, even after letting them spread," Burdick said. "This further supports the idea that continuous degradation is needed for the cells to sense the material properties of their environment and transduce that into differentiation signals."
Burdick and his colleagues see these results as helping develop a better fundamental understanding of how to engineer tissues using stem cells.
"This is a model system for showing how the microenvironment can influence the fate of the cells," Burdick said.
###
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Sudhir Khetan is now an assistant professor of bioengineering at Union College.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Penn researchers show stem cell fate depends on 'grip' Public release date: 28-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Evan Lerner elerner@upenn.edu 215-573-6604 University of Pennsylvania
The field of regenerative medicine holds great promise, propelled by greater understanding of how stem cells differentiate themselves into many of the body's different cell types. But clinical applications in the field have been slow to materialize, partially owing to difficulties in replicating the conditions these cells naturally experience.
A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania has generated new insight on how a stem cell's environment influences what type of cell a stem cell will become. They have shown that whether human mesenchymal stem cells turn into fat or bone cells depends partially on how well they can "grip" the material they are growing in.
The research was conducted by graduate student Sudhir Khetan and associate professor Jason Burdick, along with professor Christopher Chen, all of the School of Engineering and Applied Science's Department of Bioengineering. Others involved in the study include Murat Guvendiren, Wesley Legant and Daniel Cohen.
Their study was published in the journal Nature Materials.
Much research has been done on how stem cells grow on two-dimensional substrates, but comparatively little work has been done in three dimensions. Three-dimensional environments, or matrices, for stems cells have mostly been treated as simple scaffolding, rather than as a signal that influences the cells' development.
Burdick and his colleagues were interested in how these three-dimensional matrices impact mechanotransduction, which is how the cell takes information about its physical environment and translates that to chemical signaling.
"We're trying to understand how material signals can dictate stem cell response," Burdick said. "Rather than considering the material as an inert structure, it's really guiding stem cell fate and differentiation what kind of cells they will turn into."
The mesenchymal stem cells the researchers studied are found in bone marrow and can develop into several cell types: osteoblasts, which are found in bone; chondrocytes, which are found in cartilage; and adipocytes, which are found in fat.
The researchers cultured them in water-swollen polymer networks known as hydrogels, which share some similarities with the environments stem cells naturally grow in. These materials are generally soft and flexible contact lenses, for example, are a type of hydrogel but can vary in density and stiffness depending on the type and quantity of the bonds between the polymers. In this case, the researchers used covalently cross-linked gels, which contain irreversible chemical bonds.
When seeded on top of two-dimensional covalently cross-linked gels, mesenchymal stem cells spread and pulled on the material differently depending on how stiff it was. Critically, the mechanics guide cell fate, or the type of cells they differentiate it into. A softer environment would produce more fat-like cells and a stiffer environment, where the cells can pull on the gel harder, would produce more bone-like cells.
However, when the researchers put mesenchymal stem cells inside three-dimensional hydrogels of varying stiffness, they didn't see these kinds of changes.
"In most covalently cross-linked gels, the cells can't spread into the matrix because they can't degrade the bonds they all become fat cells," Burdick said. "That tells us that in 3D covalent gels the cells don't translate the mechanical information the same way they do in a 2D system."
To test this, the researchers changed the chemistry of their hydrogels so that the polymer chains were connected by a peptide that the cells could naturally degrade. They hypothesized that, as the cells spread, they would be able to get a better grip on their surrounding environment and thus be more likely to turn into bone-like cells.
In order to determine how well the cells were pulling on their environment, the researchers used a technique developed by Chen's lab called 3D traction force microscopy. This technique involves seeding the gel with microscopic beads, then tracking their location before and after a cell is removed.
"Because the gel is elastic and will relax back into its original position when you remove the cells," Chen said, "you can quantify how much the cells are pulling on the gel based on how much and which way it springs back after the cell is removed."
The results showed that the stem cells' differentiation into bone-like cells was aided by their ability to better anchor themselves into the growth environment.
"With our original experiment, we observed that the cells essentially didn't pull on the gel. They adhered to it and were viable, but we did not see bead displacement. They couldn't get a grip," Burdick said. "When we put the cells into a gel where they could degrade the bonds, we saw them spread into the matrix and deform it, displacing the beads."
As an additional test, the researchers synthesized another hydrogel. This one had the same covalent bonds that the stem cells could naturally degrade and spread through but also another type of bond that could form when exposed to light. They let the stem cells spread as before, but at the point the cells would begin to differentiate about a week after they were first encapsulated the researchers further "set" the gel by exposing it to light, forming new bonds the cells couldn't degrade.
"When we introduced these cross-links so they could no longer degrade the matrix, we saw an increase toward fat-like cells, even after letting them spread," Burdick said. "This further supports the idea that continuous degradation is needed for the cells to sense the material properties of their environment and transduce that into differentiation signals."
Burdick and his colleagues see these results as helping develop a better fundamental understanding of how to engineer tissues using stem cells.
"This is a model system for showing how the microenvironment can influence the fate of the cells," Burdick said.
###
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Sudhir Khetan is now an assistant professor of bioengineering at Union College.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Dear Debt Adviser, I was reading an article on debt and found your column. I need help. I have about $40,000 in credit card debt, and I'm one month behind on my mortgage. I'm probably a few months behind on some of my credit card debt and not sure what to do. Is bankruptcy an option? Should I sell my house and work on correcting my financial problems? Or should I just pay what I can? Thank you, Ronald. -- Ronald
Dear Ronald, I'm glad you found me. If you're willing to work at this problem, I'm sure I can help. Let's start with the good news -- you're back to work! A regular income is important when trying to take control of your finances. Now you just need to decide what to do.
Because you use the word "probably" to describe how far behind you are on your credit card accounts, it's clear you don't have a good handle on how much you owe, how late you are or how close you are to a foreclosure. To set you straight, I want you to begin your comeback by speaking with a counselor at a nonprofit credit counseling agency. You can find one through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling or the Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies.
Your counselor will make sure you don't fall into foreclosure by mistake. Most mortgage payments have a 15-day grace period. However, once a payment is late, the next month's payment is considered late if not received by the first of the month. So, by the time you think you're two weeks late, you may actually be two months late and on the verge of a foreclosure action. Most creditors do want to help, but only on their terms and terms that their regulators approve. Your counselor can help you take advantage of any assistance programs that might help.
Once you have your options laid out from your housing and credit counseling, you will have some decisions to make. Some things to consider are:
Are you better off renting or owning? You need to live somewhere.
If you need to get out of your mortgage, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act will run out Dec. 31, 2013. This shields you from a huge tax bill in a foreclosure or short sale. So if you are going to get out of your home, this may be the year to do it.
Can you catch up on your missed mortgage payments? If you don't have the money, and if your lender is unwilling to work with you, you may need to sell your home.
Your next decision will be how to handle your $40,000 in credit card debt. If you have the income and the desire, a debt management plan through the credit counseling agency may work for you. You would pay off your balances in five years or so with your creditors' help in the form of lower interest charges and waived late fees. Debt settlement may also be an option for you. But I rarely recommend it, and then only if you either do it on your own (not easy) or through an attorney (expensive). Either way, it's no fun!
Bankruptcy may be an option, but from what you have said, I think you can get out of this mess without the years of damage to credit, higher insurance bills, reduced job and promotion prospects, and more. Bankruptcy is a last resort. But, if you don't have the income to both live and repay your debt, bankruptcy may be necessary. After you've explored your other options, you may want to contact an attorney for a consultation.
CAIRO (AP) ? Dozens of people from Syrian President Bashar Assad's own minority sect met in Cairo on Sunday to send an unusual message to their fellow Alawites back home: Join the opposition before it is too late.
The Alawites have long been seen as a backbone of the Assad regime, and a decision to support the rebel force in Syria is complicated by the fact that many see their own futures interlocked with Assad's survival.
The pressure on Alawites who dare oppose Assad comes not only from the regime, but also from within their own families. Nearly all of the 50 Alawites at the opposition conference have been arrested, abused or threatened for their political views. One participant said he received an email threatening his life if he attended the conference.
The Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, are a tiny sect, representing roughly 12 percent of Syria's population. Many live in towns and villages along the mountainous Mediterranean coast. Most have either rallied behind Assad or stayed quietly on the sidelines of the 2-year-old civil war, which has killed more than 70,000 people.
The opposition meeting ? the first of its kind for Alawite Syrians since the war began ? reflects fears that they would fall victim to revenge killings and assassinations should Assad's regime fall. Some are particularly worried about the influx of foreign jihadist fighters into Syria who view Shiites as heretics.
Many minority Alawites see the war in Syria as a fight for survival against the Sunni majority. Alawites hold key posts in the army alongside some Sunnis and members of other groups that have been given top government and military positions to foster loyalty to the regime.
A statement by the Alawite opposition group said "the Syrian regime has no identity except that of tyranny."
"The Syrian regime lies when it says it protects minorities, particularly the Alawites ... in an attempt to portray to the world that it is fighting Islamic extremists and terrorism," the statement said.
Rita al-Suleiman, 29, said she had to flee Syria last year after her brother told her that he had been questioned in prison about her anti-regime activities in Homs.
"I was at first careful not to attend meetings, but then my family said they have nothing to do with me so I grew bolder," she said. "It's been very hard to leave them behind."
Like others at the conference, she said many Syrians are no longer afraid to voice their opinions, but that Alawites are under greater pressure from members of their own community not to speak out.
Bashar Aboud, 40, said his relatives warned his parents they would burn their house down if he continued defying the regime. The 40 year-old father of two, who now resides in Cairo after fleeing Syria during a 2001 crackdown on opposition figures, said his parents were forced to go on Syrian TV and disown him.
Those at the conference stressed that Alawites have long been and want to continue to be a part of the fabric of Syrian society.
"In the end we are all on the same boat and it's sinking," Aboud said, referring to Syria's precarious situation. "We are part of the team that is trying to save this boat."
One participant described the conferees as a real opposition movement that does not want to be separated from the homeland. He said he opposed dividing Syria along sectarian lines or the possibility of a breakaway enclave for Alawites as was the case under French mandate for a few years in the late 1930s.
He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals against his family in Syria.
Despite efforts by the participants to frame the conflict as a despotic regime against its people, signs of sectarian warfare are rife in Syria.
The army is being reinforced by pro-regime militias, packed with Alawites who have been accused of conducting massacres in which hundreds of civilians, including women and children, were killed.
The Syrian government claims gunmen driven by the agendas of foreign countries are responsible for the killings, but the United Nations and other witnesses have confirmed that at least some were carried out by pro-regime vigilante fighters.
Another Alawite participant at the conference said his two sons were forced out of work last year to serve in one of the national security branches, and were deployed to areas of heavy fighting, including the outskirts of Damascus.
He claimed that his sons, ages 28 and 30, had witnessed severe beatings and killings by the regime. The participant, a long-time opposition activist who wrote under the pseudo name Sami Saleh, said he and his two sons relied on Sunni fighters in the rebel Free Syrian Army to help them escape through Turkey.
He also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal against relatives still in Syria.
Some three-fourths of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but the country is also home to other Muslim groups, as well as Christians and ethnic communities of Kurds, Armenians and others. All coexisted with varying degrees of ease under Assad's regime, founded more than four decades ago by his father, Hafez, and inherited by Bashar in 2000.
The Alawite opposition conference was funded by rich businessmen from the sect, according to its organizer Bassam Youssef, who was detained for 11 years under Hafez for his communist activities against the ruling Baath Party.
A large green-striped Syrian rebel flag draped the speaker's podium and a banner in the back read: "We are all Syria. We are with a united Syria."
Several members of the main Sunni-led Syrian opposition coalition also attended the Alawite conference in solidarity. They too have struggled, coalescing around a unified voice. Its president, Mouaz al-Khatib, resigned Sunday citing frustration with the level of international support and constraints imposed by the body itself.