The 4 th International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC'08) and the 5 th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD'08) will be jointly held in Jinan , China . Jinan is the capital of Shandong Province , which is known for the home of Confucius, the Taishan Mountain , and the Baotu Spring. ICNC'08-FSKD'08 aims to provide an international forum for scientists and researchers to present the state of the art of intelligent methods inspired from nature, including biological, ecological, and physical systems, with applications to data mining, manufacturing, design, and more. It is an exciting and emerging interdisciplinary area in which a wide range of techniques and methods are being studied for dealing with large, complex, and dynamic problems. Previously, the joint conferences in 2005, 2006 and 2007 each attracted over 3000 submissions from more than 30 countries.