code: def _prepare_inputs(self, inputs, rate):
      dilated_inputs = torch.cat(
          [inputs[j::rate, :, :] for j in range(rate)], 1
      )
      return dilated_inputs
  
imports: from typing import List, Optional
  import torch
  import torch.nn
  from ..losses.pytorch import MAE
  from ..common._base_recurrent import BaseRecurrent
  from ..common._modules import MLP
label_desc: Use image node_id 8 for calling the DRNN obj's underlying member method code with example usage: obj._prepare_inputs(inputs, rate) and returns: dilated_inputs