To fill a 8 gallon tank exactly halfway you'll need 4 gallons of fuel. Each fuel can holds 1 gallons so:

cans = \( \frac{4 \text{ gallons}}{1 \text{ gallons}} \) = 4

To simplify this fraction, first find the greatest common factor between them. The factors of 40 are [1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 20, 40] and the factors of 60 are [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 60]. They share 6 factors [1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20] making 20 their greatest common factor (GCF).

Next, divide both numerator and denominator by the GCF:

\( \frac{40}{60} \) = \( \frac{\frac{40}{20}}{\frac{60}{20}} \) = \( \frac{2}{3} \)

The absolute value is the positive magnitude of a particular number or variable and is indicated by two vertical lines: \(\left|-5\right| = 5\). In the case of a variable absolute value (\(\left|a\right| = 5\)) the value of a can be either positive or negative (a = -5 or a = 5).

The equation for this sequence is:

a_n = a_n-1 + 5

where n is the term's order in the sequence, a_n is the value of the term, and a_n-1 is the value of the term before a_n. This makes the next number:

a₆ = a₅ + 5
a₆ = 21 + 5
a₆ = 26

If 69% of the town's 38,000 voters cast ballots the number of votes cast is:

(\( \frac{69}{100} \)) x 38,000 = \( \frac{2,622,000}{100} \) = 26,220

The mayor got 60% of the votes cast which is:

(\( \frac{60}{100} \)) x 26,220 = \( \frac{1,573,200}{100} \) = 15,732 votes.