code: def delay(x, initial_state=None, time_step=1, name=""):
      """
      This function combines :func:`~cntk.ops.sequence.past_value` and :func:`~cntk.ops.sequence.future_value` into a single function.
      This is useful when the time_step is computed and can be positive, negative, or 0.
  
      Args:
          x: the tensor (or its name) from which the past value is obtained
          initial_state: tensor or scalar representing the initial value to be used when the input tensor is shifted in time.
          time_step (int): the number of time steps to look into the past, where negative values mean to look into the future, and 0 means a no-op (default 1).
          name (str, optional): the name of the Function instance in the network
      """
      from ...ops import alias
  
      if time_step > 0:
          return past_value(
              x,
              time_step=time_step,
              initial_state=initial_state,
              name=name,
          )
      elif time_step < 0:
          return future_value(
              x,
              time_step=-time_step,
              initial_state=initial_state,
              name=name,
          )
      else:
          if name:
              return alias(x, name)
          else:
              return x
  
imports: import numpy
  from cntk.internal import typemap, sanitize_input
  from cntk.internal.utils import get_data_type
  from ...axis import Axis
  from ...default_options import default_override_or
label_desc: Use image node_id 6 for calling a global function with example usage: delay(x, initial_state, time_step, name) and returns: past_value, future_value, alias, x