  Charged particle multiplicities in A+A and p(pbar)+p collisions as a function
of pseudorapidity, centrality and energy are studied in both the nucleon and
the constituent quark frameworks. In the present work, the calculation of the
number of nucleon and constituent quark participants using the nuclear overlap
model takes into account the fact that for the peripheral A+A and p+p
collisions can not be smaller than two. A striking agreement is seen between
the particle density in A+A and p(pbar)+p collisions, both at mid-rapidity and
in the fragmentation regions, when normalized to the number of participating
constituent quarks. The observations presented in this paper imply that the
number of constituent quark pairs participating in the collision controls the
particle production. One may therefore conjecture that the initial states in
A+A and p(pbar)+p collisions are similar when the partonic considerations are
used in normalization.
